[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 108 (Wednesday, July 6, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4800-S4814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     concur in the House amendment with an amendment to S. 764, a 
     bill to reauthorize and amend the National Sea Grant College 
     Program Act, and for other purposes.
         Mitch McConnell, Mike Crapo, John Thune, Richard Burr, 
           James M. Inhofe, Pat Roberts, Lamar Alexander, John 
           Barrasso, Thad Cochran, Deb Fischer, Shelley Moore 
           Capito, John Boozman, Thom Tillis, David Perdue, Jerry 
           Moran, John Hoeven, Roger F. Wicker.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to concur in the House amendment with an amendment to S. 764 
shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  (Disturbance in the Visitors' Galleries.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sergeant at Arms will restore order in the 
gallery.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Utah (Mr. 
Lee).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is 
necessarily absent.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 65, nays 32, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 121 Leg.]

                                YEAS--65

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Coats
     Cochran
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Franken
     Gardner
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kaine
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Moran
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Warner
     Wicker

                                NAYS--32

     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Collins
     Durbin
     Gillibrand
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     King
     Leahy
     Markey
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Reed
     Reid
     Sanders
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Udall
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Brown
     Graham
     Lee
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). On this vote, the yeas are 65, 
the nays are 32.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.


       NATIONAL SEA GRANT COLLEGE PROGRAM AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2015

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       House message to accompany S. 764, a bill to reauthorize 
     and amend the National Sea Grant College Program Act, and for 
     other purposes.

  Pending:

       McConnell motion to concur in the House amendment to the 
     bill, with McConnell (for Roberts) amendment No. 4935, in the 
     nature of a substitute.
       McConnell amendment No. 4936 (to amendment No. 4935), to 
     change the enactment date.
       McConnell motion to refer the House message to accompany 
     the bill to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and 
     Forestry, with instructions, McConnell amendment No. 4937, in 
     the nature of a substitute.
       McConnell amendment No. 4938 (to (the instructions) 
     amendment No. 4937), to change the enactment date.
       McConnell amendment No. 4939 (to amendment No. 4938), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


      Former Secretary Clinton's Use of an Unsecured Email Server

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, some have taken yesterday's announcement 
by FBI Director Comey as vindicating Secretary Clinton for her use of a 
private, unsecured email server. But that would be exactly the wrong 
conclusion to draw. While the FBI did not recommend that the former 
Secretary of State be indicted, the concerns I have previously raised 
time and again have only been reaffirmed by the facts uncovered by 
Director Comey and the FBI's investigation.
  It is now clear beyond a reasonable doubt that Secretary Clinton 
behaved with extreme carelessness in her handling of classified 
information and that she and her staff lied to the American people and, 
at the same time, put our Nation at risk.
  First, Director Comey said unequivocally that Secretary Clinton and 
her team were ``extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, 
highly classified information.'' He went so far as to describe specific 
email chains that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access 
Program level at the time they were sent and received--in other words, 
at the highest classification level in the intelligence community.
  Remember, Secretary Clinton said that she never sent emails that 
contained classified information. Well, that proved to be false as 
well. The FBI Director made clear none of those emails should have been 
on an unclassified server--period--and that Secretary Clinton and her 
staff should have known better.
  Director Comey noted that Secretary Clinton's actions were 
``particularly concerning'' because these highly classified emails were 
housed on a server that didn't have full-time security staff like those 
at other departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
  It is pretty clear that Secretary Clinton thought she could do 
anything she wanted, even if it meant sending classified information 
over her personal, unsecured home server. It should shock every 
American that America's top diplomat--someone who had access to our 
country's most sensitive information--acted with such carelessness in 
an above-the-law sort of manner.
  Unfortunately, our threshold for being shocked at revelations like 
this has gotten unacceptably high. I saw a poll reported recently that 
81 percent of the respondents in that poll believed Washington is 
corrupt. Public confidence is at an alltime low, and we ask ourselves 
how that could be. Well, unfortunately, it is the sort of activity we 
have seen coming from Secretary Clinton and her misrepresentations 
and--frankly, there is no way to sugarcoat it--her lies to the American 
people--lies that were revealed in plain contrast yesterday by Director 
Comey's announcement.
  Secondly, we know the FBI found that Secretary Clinton behaved at 
odds with the story she has been telling the American people, as I said 
a moment ago. To be blunt, yesterday's announcement proved that she has 
not been telling the American people the truth for a long, long time 
now. When news of her private server first broke, Secretary Clinton 
said:

       I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-
     mail. There is no classified material.

  Yesterday, Director Comey made clear that wasn't true--not by a long

[[Page S4801]]

shot. In fact, he said more than 100 emails on her server were 
classified, and, as I mentioned, that includes some of the highest 
levels of classification. We are talking not just about some 
abstraction here. We are talking about people gaining intelligence--
some in highly dangerous circumstances--who have been exposed to our 
Nation's adversaries because of the recklessness or extreme 
carelessness of Secretary Clinton and her staff.
  Another example: Secretary Clinton also maintained that she gave the 
State Department quick access to all of her work-related emails. Again, 
according to Director Comey, that wasn't true either. He said the FBI 
discovered several thousand work-related emails that Secretary Clinton 
didn't turn in to the State Department 2 years ago.
  From the beginning, Secretary Clinton and her staff have done their 
dead-level best to play down her misconduct, even if that meant lying 
to the American people. To make matters even worse, Director Comey 
confirmed that Secretary Clinton's actions put our national security 
and those who are on the frontlines protecting our national security in 
jeopardy. The FBI Director said that hostile actors had access to the 
email accounts of those people with whom Secretary Clinton regularly 
communicated with from her personal account.
  We know she used her personal email--in the words of the FBI 
Director--``extensively'' while outside of the continental United 
States, including in nations of our adversaries. The FBI's conclusion 
is that it is possible that hostile actors gained access to her 
personal email account, which, as I said a moment ago, included 
information classified at the highest levels recognized by our 
government.
  My point is that this is not a trivial matter. Remember that several 
months ago, Secretary Gates--former Secretary of Defense and head of 
the CIA, serving both in the George W. Bush and the Obama 
administrations--said he thought the odds were pretty high that the 
Russians, Chinese, and Iranians had compromised Clinton's server--
again, all the time while she is conducting official business as 
Secretary of State for the U.S. Government.
  It was also reported last fall that Russian-linked hackers tried to 
hack into Secretary Clinton's emails on at least five occasions. It is 
hard to know, much less estimate, the potential damage done to our 
Nation's security as a result of this extreme carelessness demonstrated 
by Secretary Clinton and her staff. In reality, it is impossible for us 
to know for sure. But what is clear is that Secretary Clinton acted 
recklessly and repeatedly lied to the American people, and I should 
point out that she didn't do so for any particularly good reason. None 
of the explanations Secretary Clinton has offered, convenience and the 
like, have held up to even the slightest scrutiny. Her intent was 
obvious, though. It was to avoid the accountability that she feared 
would come from public recognition of her official conduct. So she 
wanted to do it in secret, away from the prying eyes of government 
watchdogs and the American people.

  The FBI may not have found evidence of criminal intent, but there is 
no doubt about her intent to evade the laws of the United States--not 
just criminal laws that Director Comey talked about but things like the 
Freedom of Information laws, which make sure the American people have 
access to the information that their government uses to make decisions 
on their behalf. These are important pieces of legislation that are 
designed to give the American people the opportunity to know what they 
have a right to know so they can hold their elected officials 
accountable.
  In the end, this isn't just a case of some political novice who 
doesn't understand the risks involved or someone who doesn't really 
understand the protocols required of a high-level government employee. 
This is a case of someone who, as Director Comey pointed out, should 
have known better.
  I know Secretary Clinton likes to talk about her long experience in 
politics as the spouse of a President of the United States when she 
served as First Lady, as a United States Senator, and then as Secretary 
of State. But all of this experience, as Director Comey said, should 
have taught her better than she apparently learned.
  The bottom line is that Secretary Clinton actively sought out ways to 
hide her actions as much as possible, and in doing so, she put our 
country at risk. For a Secretary of State to conduct official 
business--including transmitting and receiving information that is 
classified at the highest levels known by our intelligence community--
on a private, unsecured server when sensitive national defense 
information would likely pass through is not just a lapse of judgment; 
it is a conscious decision to put the American people in harm's way.
  As Director Comey noted, in similar circumstances, people who engage 
in what Secretary Clinton did are ``often subject to security or 
administrative sanctions''; that is, they are held accountable, if not 
criminally, in some other way. He said that obviously is not within the 
purview of the FBI. But he said that other people, even if they aren't 
indicted, will be subjected to security or administrative sanctions.
  Secretary Clinton evidently will not be prosecuted criminally, but 
she should be held accountable. From the beginning, I have had concerns 
about what Secretary Clinton did and whether this investigation would 
be free of politics. However one feels about the latter, it is clear 
that Secretary Clinton's actions were egregious and that there is good 
reason why the American people simply don't trust her and why she 
should be held accountable.
  In closing, I would just say that we know there was an extensive 
investigation conducted by the FBI, and we know that Director Comey 
said that no reasonable prosecutor would seek an indictment and 
prosecute Secretary Clinton for her actions. That being the case, I 
would join my colleagues--Senator Grassley, chairman of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, and others--who have called for the public release 
of the FBI's investigation so we can know the whole story. That would 
also include the transcript from the 3\1/2\ hour interview that 
Secretary Clinton gave to the FBI, I believe just last Saturday. That 
way, the American people can have access to all the information.
  What I suspect it would reveal--because it is a crime to lie to an 
FBI agent, I suspect Secretary Clinton, perhaps for the first time, in 
her interview with the FBI told the FBI the truth. If I were her 
lawyer, I certainly would advise her: No matter what happens, you had 
better tell the truth in that FBI interview because the coverup is 
something you can be indicted for as well.
  So I suspect what happened is that, in that FBI interview, she did 
tell the FBI the truth. That is where Director Comey got so much of his 
information, which he then used to dismantle brick by brick the public 
narrative that Secretary Clinton has been spinning to the American 
people for the last couple of years.
  If transparency and accountability are important, as Director Comey 
said yesterday, you would think that Secretary Clinton would want to 
put this behind her by also supporting the public release of this 
investigation, as well as the transcript of her interview with the FBI. 
I will be listening very carefully to see whether she joins us in 
making this request. But under the circumstances, where she no longer 
has any credible fear of indictment or prosecution, she owes to the 
public--and we owe to the public--that the entire evidence be presented 
to them in an open and transparent way. That is why the FBI should 
release this information, particularly the transcript of this interview 
she gave to FBI agents for 3\1/2\ hours at the FBI's headquarters 
downtown. Then, and only then, will the American people be able to 
render a well-informed and an adequate judgment on her actions taken as 
a whole because right now there appear to be nothing but good reasons 
why, in poll after poll after poll, people say they just don't trust 
her.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to address the bill before 
us, a bill that presents itself as a labeling bill but which is deeply 
defective, with three major loopholes that mean this labeling bill will 
not label GMO products, and I am going to lay out those challenges.
  First, I want to be clear that this is about American citizens' right 
to know what is in their food. We have all kinds of consumer laws about 
rights to know,

[[Page S4802]]

but maybe there is nothing as personal as what you put in your mouth or 
what you feed your family. That is why emotions run so deep. Citizens 
have a right to make up their own mind.
  We talk a lot about the vision of our country being a ``we the 
people'' democracy, and certainly it was Jefferson who said ``the 
mother principle'' of our Republic is that we can call ourselves a 
Republic only to the degree that the decisions reflect the will of the 
people, and that will happen only if the people have an equal voice.
  In this case, we have a powerful enterprise--a company named 
Monsanto--that has come to this Chamber with a goal, which is to take 
away the right of consumers across this Nation and take away the right 
of citizens across this Nation to know what is in their food.
  I am specifically referring to the Monsanto DARK Act. Why is it 
called the DARK Act? It is called the DARK Act because it is an 
acronym: Deny Americans the Right to Know. But it also very much 
represents the difference between an enlightenment that comes from 
information and knowledge, and a darkness that comes from suppressing 
information.
  James Madison, our country's fourth President and Father of the 
Constitution, once wrote:

       Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who 
     mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the 
     power which knowledge gives.

  That is what this debate is about--whether citizens can arm 
themselves with the knowledge, arm themselves with the power that 
knowledge gives. And this act before us, the Monsanto DARK Act, says: 
No, we are not going to allow citizens to acquire in a simple way the 
information about whether the product they are considering buying has 
genetically modified ingredients.
  There is something particularly disheartening about that, and that is 
that this is one of the few issues in the country about which you can 
ask Republicans, you can ask Democrats, you can ask Independents, and 
they all have the same answer. Basically, nine out of ten Americans, 
regardless of party, want a simple indication on the package: Does this 
container include GMO ingredients? That is all--a simple, consumer-
friendly right to know, and this bill is all about taking that away.
  Let me turn to the three big loopholes in this bill.
  Monsanto loophole No. 1: A definition that exempts the three major 
GMO products in America. Isn't it ironic to have a bill where the 
definition of GMO has been crafted in a fashion never seen anywhere 
else on this planet, is not in use by any of the 64 countries around 
the world that have a labeling law, and it just happens to be crafted 
to exclude the three major Monsanto GMO products? What are those 
products?
  The first is GMO corn when it becomes high-fructose corn syrup. Well, 
it is GMO corn, but under the definition of high-fructose corn syrup 
from GMO corn, it is suddenly not GMO.
  Let's talk about soybeans. When Monsanto GMO soybeans become soybean 
oil, they magically are no longer GMO under the definition in this 
bill.
  Let's talk about sugar beets. Monsanto GMO sugar beets--when the 
sugar is produced and goes into products, it is suddenly, magically not 
GMO sugar.
  Isn't it a coincidence that this definition is not found anywhere 
else in the world? This bill happens to exclude the three biggest 
products produced by Monsanto. Well, it is no coincidence. They are 
determined to make sure they are not covered. High-fructose corn syrup, 
sugar from GMO sugar beets, oil from GMO soybeans--none of those are 
covered.
  This has been an issue of some debate because folks have said: Well, 
the plain language in the bill might be overruled and modified by the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture when they do rules. Of course, a rule 
that contravenes the plain language of the bill would in fact not 
stand. It wouldn't be authorized. So what does the plain language of 
the bill say? It says: ``The term `bioengineering,' and any similar 
term, as determined by the Secretary, with respect to a food, refers to 
a food . . . that contains genetic material that has been modified.''
  That was the magic language not found anywhere in the world--
``contains genetic material that has been modified''--because when you 
make high-fructose corn syrup, when you make sugar from sugar beets, 
when you make soy oil from soybeans, that information is stripped out. 
That is what magically transformed a GMO ingredient to a non-GMO 
ingredient.
  They have a second loophole, and that loophole says ``for which the 
modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional 
breeding.'' Well, the ``could'' factor here certainly raises all kinds 
of questions. In theory, is it possible to obtain through natural 
selection what we obtain through genetic engineering? Well, then 
suddenly it is not genetic engineering. We haven't been able to find 
out exactly which crop they are trying to protect, wave that magic 
wand, and convert a GMO crop into a non-GMO crop, but certainly it is 
there for a specific purpose.
  What does this mean? This means that if you look around the world and 
you examine the labeling laws from the European Union or Brazil or 
China, corn oil, soybean oil, sugar from sugar beets--all of those, if 
they come from a GMO form, GMO soybean, or GMO sugar beets, they are 
all covered. They are all covered everywhere in the world except, 
magically, in this bill.
  We have consulted many experts. The language of the bill is very 
clear, but many experts have weighed in and they say things like this:

       This definition leaves out a large number of foods derived 
     from GMOs such as corn and soy oil, sugar beet sugar. That is 
     because, although these products are derived from or are 
     GMOs, the level of DNA in the products is very low and is 
     generally not sufficient to be detected in DNA-based assays.

  That is the basic bottom line. That is loophole No. 1.
  Let's turn to Monsanto loophole No. 2. What this loophole is, is this 
law doesn't actually require a label that says there are GMO 
ingredients. It provides a couple of options, voluntary. Those options 
already exist in law so that is not giving anything we don't currently 
have. Under this law, a manufacturer is allowed to put in a phrase and 
say this product is partially derived from GMO ingredients or partially 
made from GMO ingredients. They can do that right now. It also says the 
USDA will develop a symbol, and that symbol can be put on a package to 
indicate it has GMO ingredients. Somebody can voluntarily put on a 
symbol right now. If you don't voluntarily do those things that 
actually disclose it has GMO ingredients, this is the default.

  We see here this barcode. It is also referred to as a quick response 
code. It says: Scan this for more information. Scan me. Of course, 
package after package across America already has barcodes. Package 
after package already has quick response codes, as these are referred 
to, these square computer codes--scan me for more information. It 
doesn't say there are GMO ingredients in this package. It doesn't say: 
Scan here for more information on the GMO ingredients in this food. No, 
just scan me.
  Certainly, this defies the ability of anyone to look at that and say 
whether there are GMO ingredients. All it does is take you to a Web 
site. How do you get to that Web site? You have to have a smartphone. 
You have to have a digital plan you pay for. You have to have wireless 
coverage at the point that you are there. You have to scan it and go to 
a Web site to find out--the Web site, by the way, will be written by 
the company that makes the food so it is not going to be easy to find 
that information.
  The bill says it will be in the first page of the Web site. There 
could be a lot of information on that Web page and always in a 
different format. This is not a label. This is an obstacle course. It 
is an obstacle course that causes you to spend your own money and your 
digital time.
  If I want to compare five different products and see if they have a 
GMO ingredient and I have five versions of canned carrots, I can pick 
up that can, and if there is a symbol or a phrase that says ``partially 
produced with genetically modified ingredients,'' I can pick that up, 
turn it over, and in 1 second I get the answer. In 1 second, I can get 
the answer about the number of calories. In 1 second, I can get the 
answer of whether it contains peanuts. In 1 second, I can get the 
answer on how much sugar it has. I can compare these

[[Page S4803]]

five products in 5 seconds, which one--oh, here is the one I want. I 
want one that does have GMO. I want one that doesn't have GMO. That is 
a GMO label.
  This is an obstacle course. This provides no details unless you go 
through a convoluted system that takes up a lot of time. If I want to 
compare those five products, I would have to stand in the aisle of the 
grocery store for 30 minutes trying to go to different Web sites, 
hoping there was wireless coverage. Quite frankly, that whole process, 
no one would do that. That is exactly why Monsanto wants this code 
because no one will use it. They don't know they should use it for GMO 
ingredients because it doesn't say it, and they know it will take so 
much time that no busy person or not-so-busy person would see that as a 
significant way to obtain the data desired.
  Let's say I am going shopping for 20 items. If each of those items 
required comparing five products, if it was a 1-second label, it would 
take up to 50 seconds of my time shopping for 20 products--or 100 
seconds of my time, excuse me. In this case, if it took half an hour 
per product, it would be 10 hours standing in the grocery store, on 
just 20 items, trying to figure out which variety does not contain 
GMOs. That obstacle course, combined with the definition that excludes 
Monsanto products, comprises Monsanto loophole No. 1 and Monsanto 
loophole No. 2.
  There is a third loophole in this bill. Wouldn't it be wonderful, 
Monsanto says, to have a bill with no enforcement in it. When we look 
at other labeling laws, there is always enforcement. You violate this, 
there is a $1,000 fine. You violate it again, there is a $1,000 fine or 
something of that nature. This is the type of provision we had in our 
COOL Act. What was COOL? C-O-O-L--Country of Origin Labeling, the COOL 
Act. That was something that required labeling to say that meat--
specifically, pork and beef--whether it had been grown and processed in 
the United States of America. If I, as a patriotic American, wanted to 
support American farmers, American ranchers, I could do so because the 
meat had a label.
  What was the consequence of failing to provide that label? There was 
a fine. This bill does not have a USDA fine. This bill does not have 
any enforcement. It is very clear. They cannot recall any product. They 
cannot ban a product going to market. The only consequence in this bill 
is the Secretary could have the possibility of doing an audit of a 
company that had been the subject of complaints and could disclose the 
results of an audit. In a press release, he could say: We have done an 
audit of this company and they are not following the law. That is the 
consequence--a public announcement. Well, hardly anything this 
compelling--it just invites people to ignore this law.
  At every level, Monsanto has undermined this being a legitimate 
labeling law--a definition that excludes the big Monsanto products, an 
obstacle course instead of a label, and no enforcement. This bill says 
we oppose the bill because it is actually a nonlabeling bill under the 
guise of a mandatory labeling bill. That sums it up. It pretends to be 
a labeling bill, but it is not. This is a letter signed by 76 pro-
organic organizations and farmer groups.
  I had to do this very quickly. There has been no hearing on this 
bill. For this unique, never-in-the-world definition that exempts the 
Monsanto products, there has never been a hearing. What kind of 
deliberative body is the U.S. Senate when it is afraid to hold a 
hearing because people might point out that a very powerful special 
interest, Monsanto, had written a definition that excludes their own 
products?

  Apparently, Senators are quaking in their boots for fear the public 
might find out they just voted on a bill with a definition that 
excludes Monsanto products so they didn't want to risk a hearing that 
would make that clear.
  I am so appreciative of these groups. While you can't make out this 
print, it gives you a sense of what type of groups we are talking about 
from across the country--the Center for Food Safety, Food & Water 
Watch, Biosafety, the Cedar Circle Farm, Central Park West, Food 
Democracy, Farm Aid, Family Farm Defenders, Good Earth Natural Foods, 
on and on--because these groups believe citizens have a right to know 
what is in their food.
  Some folks have said: Well, they don't deserve to have that right 
because this food is not going to do them any harm. Boy, isn't that Big 
Brother talking once again. The powerful Federal Government is going to 
make up your mind for you and not going to allow you to have that power 
that comes from knowledge.
  As I noted earlier, James Madison wrote: ``Knowledge will forever 
govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must 
arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.''
  Big Brother says we don't want the people to have the power of 
knowledge; we don't let them make their own decision. Why is it so many 
people feel so powerfully about this issue? First, various groups have 
determined a major genetic modification that makes crops glyphosate-
resistant, weed killer-resistant is a health issue. Why is it a health 
issue? Because glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen.
  That is something citizens have a right to be concerned about, the 
possibility of cancer. In areas where glyphosate is sprayed on crops, 
it has shown up even in samples of rainfall, and it has shown up in the 
urine of people who live in that area. Do people have the right to be 
concerned about the fact that a weed killer is being sprayed, and it is 
ending up in their urine? Yes, I think they do. They have the right to 
be concerned about that.
  Do they have a right to be concerned about the impact when this 
massive amount of weed killer flows off the farms and into our streams 
and rivers because that weed killer proceeds to kill organisms in the 
rivers, in the streams, altering the biology of the stream? Yes, they 
have a right to be worried about that.
  Do they have a right to be concerned when the huge application of 
glyphosate is producing superweeds; that is, weeds growing near the 
fields that are exposed so often that mutations that make them 
naturally resistant proceed to produce weeds that are resistant to 
glyphosate, meaning you have to put even more weed killer on the crops.
  Do they have a right to be concerned when there is a genetic 
modification called Bt corn that actually causes pesticide to grow 
inside the cells of the corn plant? What is the impact of that on human 
health? We don't yet know. Yet that particular genetic modification 
that causes pesticide to be growing inside the cells of the plant is 
covering more than 90 percent of the corn grown in America. That is a 
legitimate concern.
  Do the citizens have a right to be concerned when they discover the 
insects a pesticide is designed to kill are evolving and becoming 
superpests and are becoming immune to that pesticide; meaning, not only 
is there pesticide growing in the cell of the plant, but now the farmer 
has applied pesticide to the field as well, which was the whole goal of 
ignoring that in the first place--that you wouldn't have to do that.
  They have a right to be concerned. They have a right to educate 
themselves. They have a right to make their own decision. This is a Big 
Brother bill if there ever was one, saying, for those who supported 
cloture on this bill: This bill says citizens do not have the right to 
know. We are going to have a label that actually doesn't label. We are 
going to have a label that is an obstacle course. We are going to have 
a definition that excludes a commonly understood definition of what GMO 
crops are, and we are going to have no enforcement.
  This is not good work. This is not a deliberative Senate. Let's send 
this bill to committee and have a complete hearing on the deficiencies 
I am talking about. Let's invite Monsanto to come and testify. Let's 
invite the many scientists who weighed in about the fact that this 
exempts the primary GMO products in America. Let them come and speak. 
Let all of us get educated, not have this rammed through the Senate at 
the very last moment.
  There are individuals here who said: Wait. Time is urgent because we 
can't have 50 different State labeling standards. We only have one 
State that has a labeling standard, and that is Vermont. There is no 
real concern that we have two conflicting standards because we only 
have one standard. Could

[[Page S4804]]

there be more than one standard down the road? Yes, that is a 
possibility, but that is down the road. That doesn't require us to act 
today.
  There are folks who say: Well, the Vermont law goes into effect July 
1 so we have to act now to prevent the Vermont law from going into 
effect. The Vermont law has a 6-month grace period. It doesn't go into 
effect until January 1 of 2017. We have lots of time to hold hearings. 
We have lots of time to embrace knowledge rather than to convey and 
enforce ignorance, lots of time. So these arguments that are made about 
the urgency are phony arguments. They are made to take and enable a 
powerful special interest to push through a bill that 90 percent of 
Americans disagree with, to do it essentially in the dark of the night 
by not having hearings, not on the House side, not on the Senate side, 
not having a full debate on this floor. No, instead we are using an 
instrument that is a modification of a House bill that is a 
modification of a Senate bill because procedurally it makes it easier 
to ram this bill through without due consideration. That is wrong.
  What I am asking for is a simple opportunity to have a series of 
reasonable amendments voted on, on the floor of this Senate. Let's 
actually embrace the Senate as a deliberative body. There is an 
amendment that would fix the definition. That is the amendment by 
Senator Tester from Montana. That amendment would simply say: The 
derivatives of GMO crops are GMO ingredients. Soybean oil from GMO 
soybean is a GMO ingredient.
  Many proponents of the bill said they think that is what is going to 
happen with the regulation down the road. If you believe that is what 
will happen, then join us. Let's correct the definition right now. Why 
have law cases? Why go into our July break having passed something with 
a definition that we don't have a consensus on what it means?
  I know what the plain language says. I know what it exempts as GMO 
crops, but some say: Well, maybe not, maybe there is something that the 
USDA can do to change that, and they will be covered. The USDA was 
asked that question, and they wouldn't answer it directly. They sent 
back this very convoluted legal language that said: Foods that might or 
might not have GMO or non-GMO ingredients might possibly be covered, of 
course, based on what other ingredients are in the food.
  Would the soybean oil from a GMO soybean be considered a GMO 
ingredient? That is the question. The USDA needs to answer that yes or 
no instead of this long, convoluted, lengthy dodging that occurred 
because they were afraid to answer the question. That is knowledge we 
could use on the floor of the Senate. Would high-fructose corn syrup 
from GMO corn be considered a GMO ingredient? The USDA wouldn't answer 
those questions directly, but lots of other folks did. The FDA, or the 
Food and Drug Administration, answered the question in technical 
guidance. They said: Absolutely they wouldn't be covered. All kinds of 
other experts weighed in and said: Absolutely they wouldn't be covered. 
Maybe that is the type of information that we should have from a 
hearing on this bill.
  How about voting on a simple amendment that clears up this confusion 
and clearly uses a definition, not one written by and for exempting 
three major GMO Monsanto crops. We need a straightforward definition 
that is used elsewhere and covers all of the products that are 
ordinarily considered a GMO. That is not too much to ask. Let's have a 
debate on that amendment. We should vote on whether we are going to 
have a clear definition in this bill.
  Let's vote on changing the QR code. The QR code has a phrase in it 
that says: ``Scan here for more food information.'' What if this simply 
said: Scan here for information on GMO ingredients? Now we have a GMO 
label. Now it would be truthful and authentic to say that this bill is 
going to require a GMO label simply by saying: ``Scan here for GMO 
ingredients in this product.'' Let's have an amendment that changes 
that language. I have such an amendment, and I would like to see us 
have a vote on it. To the proponents who are saying this is a GMO 
labeling bill, this would actually make it a GMO labeling bill.
  I know the two Senators from Vermont each have an amendment they 
would like to have considered, one of which would take the Vermont 
standard and make it the national standard, thereby making one single 
national standard, and another would grandfather Vermont in and say: 
Let's not roll over the top of Vermont. Maybe there are a couple of 
other Senators who have things that will improve this legislation. How 
about an amendment that would actually put in the same authority to 
levy fines that we have on the country-of-origin labeling law. I have 
that amendment. What about a vote on that amendment? These should be 
things that we can come together on.
  If you truly want to have a national labeling standard, you want a 
definition that has integrity and is consistent with what is commonly 
understood to be a GMO. You want to have a label that indicates there 
are GMO ingredients inside because that is authenticity. You want to 
have the ability to have the U.S. Department of Agriculture levy a fine 
if people disobey the law so that it actually has some teeth in it and 
some compelling force. That is what I am asking for. Let's have a vote 
on several basic amendments rather than blindly embracing ignorance and 
denying Americans the right to know.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Do I need to make any specific 
request to reserve the remainder of my 1 hour?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Flake). No, the hour remains.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.


                 MILCON-VA and Zika Virus Funding Bill

  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I rise today to emphasize the importance 
of the MILCON-VA and Zika conference bill. As a member of the 
conference committee that crafted this report and a member of the 
subcommittee that drafted the Military Construction and Veterans 
Affairs appropriations bill, I cannot overstate the significance of 
this legislation.
  Sadly, we have watched the Senate Democrats play politics with 
critical funding for our military, our veterans, and funding to combat 
Zika. In my view, this stunt--and I call it a stunt because that is 
what it is--is both dangerous and disheartening. It is an insult to the 
men and women who sacrifice so much to keep us safe. It is a reckless 
game to play with our veterans and public health across this country.
  The conference report includes record-level funding for America's 
veterans. It fully funds the VA's request for veterans' medical 
services and provides an overall increase of nearly 9 percent for our 
veterans programs. It includes measures for the Department of Veterans 
Affairs to improve access and efficiency for military services. We 
certainly know we have a long way to go before we get satisfaction 
there. We have a long way to go to reduce the backlogs in claims 
processing, strengthen our whistleblower protections, and improve 
information technology in medical research.
  The drug epidemic plaguing our Nation has unfortunately hit our 
veterans community particularly hard, especially in my home State of 
West Virginia. The overdose rate in my State is more than twice the 
national average. With almost 40 percent of our State's veterans using 
the VA health care system, it is vital that we strengthen the VA's 
ability to help treat opioid addiction.
  Whether our veterans are recovering from injuries obtained during 
their service or tending to their daily health needs, this bill 
provides funding to give veterans a new lease on life. This includes 
supporting the VA's Opioid Safety Initiative--something I have been 
very involved with--which improves pain care for those who have a 
higher risk of opioid-related overdoses. It also encourages the VA to 
continually expand treatment services and better monitor our at-risk 
veterans.
  Another thing we can do for our veterans is ensure they have ample 
employment opportunities as they transition into civilian life--another 
problem we have identified. In West Virginia, where the majority of our 
veterans live in rural areas--and as many of you know, almost the whole 
State is

[[Page S4805]]

rural--the unemployment rate is almost 2 percent higher than the 
overall national average.
  I recently witnessed something that was great to see: an innovative 
agritherapy program that helps our veterans cope with PTSD. It has also 
helped to arm our veterans with skills they can use to start a 
business. I met several veterans who were suffering from PTSD who have 
embarked on an agritherapy program using bees and beekeeping. At Geezer 
Ridge Farm in Hedgesville--yes, it is Geezer Ridge--I saw veterans use 
beekeeping to overcome PTSD. To date, the program has helped create 150 
new veteran-owned farms.
  The benefits of agritherapy have been acknowledged by publications 
such as Psychology Today and Newsweek. However, we need research to 
further explore the benefits of this type of treatment. That is why I 
offered a provision in this bill calling for a pilot program at the VA 
to better understand agritherapy, and I am excited about what we 
learned.
  While I was out there, I met a veteran who was suffering from PTSD 
and who was seeing a therapist once a week because he was having such 
difficulty coping at the VA, and he got interested in beekeeping. He 
began to grow a business, to learn about bees, pollen and honey, the 
queen bee, and all those kinds of things. He said that now he only sees 
a therapist every other month. He has such relief, and it gives him 
such a positive outlook for his future, just by having this type of 
therapy available to him.
  This bill also prioritizes a full range of programs to ensure that we 
honor our commitment to our men and women in uniform and that we 
deliver the services our veterans have dutifully earned.
  Let's talk for a moment about a growing public health threat facing 
us, and that is the Zika virus. We have all heard about it, and we have 
seen pictures of children who were born from mothers who were infected 
by Zika. It is very disheartening, sad, and difficult to see and to 
think about those young families starting out.
  This conference report includes $1.1 billion to tackle Zika. With 
every conversation I have and every statistic and article I have read, 
I grow more concerned. I think everybody does. I spoke to a group of 
young students just the other day. Young students are tuning in to this 
difficult problem.
  After hearing testimony before the Appropriations Committee and 
meeting with the CDC Director, I understand the immediate need to 
provide funds for research, prevention, and treatment. We are all 
vulnerable to what the CDC Director told me is an unprecedented threat.
  We must act to protect ourselves and prevent the spread of this 
deadly virus. We must do it smartly, efficiently, and without wasting 
our taxpayers' dollars. This conference report that is stalled, that is 
stuck in this stunt, does just that. It takes the necessary and 
responsible actions to protect Americans from an outbreak.
  The $1.1 billion allocated in this conference report is the same 
amount the Democrats supported just last month when an amendment 
addressing Zika funding passed out of the Senate. It doesn't make 
sense. Their reasoning for opposing this funding lacks merit. The 
conference report does not prohibit access to any health service. In 
fact, it provides the same access to health services that was in the 
President's request. The conference report even expands access to 
services by boosting funding for our community health centers, public 
health departments, and hospitals in areas most directly affected by 
Zika. The safety and health of Americans should be our No. 1 priority. 
Sadly, the other side has chosen to prioritize politics over the 
American people.
  We will have another opportunity to vote on this conference report, 
and I am hopeful that my Democratic colleagues will do the right thing. 
Rather than blocking critical funding for veterans and the Zika 
response, we need to join together to send this conference report to 
the President's desk as soon as possible.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.


                           Fighting Terrorism

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last week terrorists wearing suicide vests 
entered the Istanbul airport and opened fire on travelers before 
detonating their vests. Forty-five people were killed and more than 200 
were injured. While no group has yet claimed responsibility, Turkish 
officials believe that ISIS was behind the attack.
  The list of ISIS-related terrorist attacks in the United States and 
against our allies is steadily growing: Paris, San Bernardino, 
Brussels, Orlando, and Istanbul. Then, of course, there is the constant 
barrage of attacks in the Middle East, such as last week's deadly 
attack in Baghdad that resulted in the death of 250 people.
  So far the attacks in the United States have been inspired by--rather 
than carried out by--ISIS, but that could change at any moment. In the 
wake of the Istanbul attacks, CIA Director John Brennan stated he would 
be ``surprised'' if ISIS isn't planning a similar attack in the United 
States.
  Given the terrorist violence in recent months, it is no surprise that 
a recent FOX News poll found that an overwhelming majority of 
Americans, 84 percent, think that ``most Americans today are feeling 
more nervous than confident about stopping terrorist attacks.''
  Unfortunately, they have reason to be nervous because under President 
Obama we are not doing what we need to be doing to stop ISIS. For proof 
of that, we have President Obama's own CIA chief, who has made it clear 
that the measures the administration has taken to stop ISIS have failed 
to reduce the group's ability to carry out attacks.
  Testifying before Congress 3 weeks ago, Director Brennan stated: 
``Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the 
battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced 
the group's terrorism capability and global reach.''
  Let me repeat that: `` . . . our efforts have not reduced the group's 
terrorism capability and global reach,'' said CIA Director Brennan.
  That is a pretty serious indictment of the Obama administration's 
ISIS strategy or the lack thereof. If our efforts have not reduced 
ISIS's terrorism capability and global reach, then our efforts are 
failing and we need a new plan, but that is something that President 
Obama seems unlikely to produce. Despite a halfhearted campaign against 
ISIS, the President has never laid out a comprehensive strategy to 
defeat the terrorist group. As a result, ISIS's terrorism capability 
and global reach are thriving.
  Keeping Americans safe from ISIS requires a comprehensive approach. 
It requires not just containing but decisively defeating ISIS abroad. 
It requires controlling our borders and strengthening our immigration 
system. It requires us to give law enforcement and intelligence 
agencies the tools and funding they need to monitor threats abroad and 
here at home. It requires us to secure the homeland by addressing 
security weaknesses that would give terrorists an opening to attack. 
Unfortunately, President Obama has failed to adequately address these 
priorities, and at this late date, the President is unlikely to change 
his approach.
  The Republican-led Senate cannot force the President to take the 
threat posed by ISIS seriously, but we are committed to doing 
everything we can to increase our Nation's security. A key part of 
defeating ISIS abroad is making sure the men and women of our military 
have the equipment, the training, and the resources they need to win 
battles.
  This month, the Senate will take up the annual appropriations bill to 
fund our troops. This year's bill focuses on eliminating wasteful 
spending and redirecting those funds to modernize our military and 
increase troop pay. It rejects President Obama's plan to close 
Guantanamo Bay and bring suspected terrorists to our shores, and it 
funds our efforts to defeat ISIS abroad.
  The bill received unanimous bipartisan support in the Appropriations 
Committee. I am hoping the outcome will be the same on the Senate 
floor.
  Last year, the Democrats chose to play politics with this 
appropriations bill and voted to block essential funding for our troops 
no fewer than three times, even though they had no real objections to 
the actual substance of the bill.
  Playing politics with funding for our troops is never acceptable, but 
it is

[[Page S4806]]

particularly unacceptable at a time when our Nation is facing so many 
threats to our security. I hope this time around Senate Democrats will 
work with us to quickly pass this legislation.
  In addition to funding our military, another key aspect to protecting 
our Nation from terrorist threats is controlling our borders. We have 
to know who is coming into our country so that we can keep out 
terrorists and anyone else who wants to harm us. If criminals and 
suspected terrorists do make it across our borders, we need to 
apprehend them immediately.
  One thing we can do right now to improve our ability to keep 
criminals and suspected terrorists off our streets is to eliminate so-
called sanctuary cities. Right now, more than 300 cities across the 
United States have policies in place that discourage local law 
enforcement from cooperating with immigration officials. That means 
that when a Homeland Security official asks local authorities to detain 
a dangerous felon or suspected terrorist until Federal authorities can 
come collect the individual, these jurisdictions may refuse to help. 
Sanctuary city policies have resulted in the release of thousands of 
criminals who could otherwise have been picked up by the Department of 
Homeland Security and deported.
  Senator Toomey has offered a bill to discourage these policies by 
withholding certain Federal funds from jurisdictions that refuse to 
help Federal officials keep dangerous individuals off the streets. I 
have to say that I am deeply disappointed that this afternoon the 
Senate Democrats chose to block this important legislation. By opposing 
this bill, Democrats are complicit in making it easier for felons and 
suspected terrorists to threaten our communities.
  Giving our intelligence and law enforcement agencies the tools they 
need to track terrorists is one of the most important ways we can 
prevent future attacks.
  In June, the Senate took up an amendment to give the FBI authority to 
obtain records of suspected terrorists' electronic transactions, such 
as what Web sites they visited and how long they spent on those sites. 
The FBI has stated that obtaining this authority is one of its top 
legislative priorities.
  The agency already has authority to obtain similar telephone and 
financial records, but what the FBI Director described as ``essentially 
a typo in the law'' has so far prevented the FBI from easily obtaining 
the same records for Web sites. Fixing this intelligence gap would 
significantly improve the FBI's ability to track suspected terrorists 
and to prevent attacks. Unfortunately, again, the majority of Senate 
Democrats inexplicably voted against this amendment, which I hope will 
be reconsidered in the Senate in the near future.
  On top of that, Democrats are threatening to block this year's 
Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, which provides funding 
that the FBI and other key law enforcement agencies need to operate.
  When the President's CIA Director testified before Congress in June, 
he told Members: ``I have never seen a time when our country faced such 
a wide variety of threats to our national security.''
  Given these threats, and especially given the recent ISIS-inspired 
attack on our own soil, it is both puzzling and deeply troubling that 
Democrats would block the FBI's No. 1 priority and then play politics 
with the funding that will help the agency track suspected terrorists 
in our country.
  As I mentioned above, the final essential element to protecting 
Americans from terrorist attacks is addressing our vulnerabilities here 
at home. The recent terrorist attacks in Istanbul and Brussels 
highlighted vulnerabilities at airports we need to address to prevent 
similar attacks in the United States.
  This afternoon, the House and Senate announced they had reached 
agreement on a final version of aviation legislation. In addition to 
aviation safety measures and new consumer protections--such as 
guaranteed refunds of baggage fees for lost or seriously delayed 
luggage--this legislation provides one of the largest, most 
comprehensive airport security packages in years.
  This legislation improves vetting of airport employees to address the 
insider terrorist threat, the risk that an airport employee would give 
a terrorist access to secure areas of an airport. It includes 
provisions to get more Americans enrolled in Precheck to reduce the 
size of crowds waiting in unsecured areas of our airports, and it 
contains measures to add more K-9 and other security personnel at 
airports so we are better able to deter attacks. In addition, the bill 
requires the TSA to look at ways to improve security checkpoints to 
make the passenger screening process more efficient and effective.
  I look forward to sending this legislation to the President by July 
15. As the President's own CIA Director made clear, President Obama's 
halfhearted approach to countering ISIS has failed to reduce the threat 
this terrorist organization poses.
  While I would like to think the President will develop a greater 
seriousness about ISIS in the last 6 months of his Presidency, I am not 
holding out a lot of hope. But whatever the President does or fails to 
do, Republicans in the Senate will continue to do everything we can to 
protect our country and to keep Americans safe from terrorist attacks.
  I hope that Democrats in Congress will join us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.


                   Alzheimer's Caregiver Support Act

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today I rise with my colleague from 
Maine, Senator Susan Collins, to bring attention to the millions of 
Americans living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and the 
loving caregivers who take care of them.
  One in three seniors who die each year has Alzheimer's or related 
dementia. The cost is incredible. In 2016, we will spend $236 billion 
caring for individuals with Alzheimer's. By 2050, these costs will 
reach $1.1 trillion.
  The one thing we know is we are seeing more and more people with 
Alzheimer's. We are working diligently--all of our doctors and medical 
professionals--for a cure, but we know that, in the meantime, we will 
have many family members involved in taking care of them.
  Senator Collins and I have introduced the Alzheimer's Caregiver 
Support Act, which authorizes grants to public and nonprofit 
organizations to expand training and support services for families and 
caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease or related dementias. 
We think that these sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, and 
husbands and wives who are doing this caregiving all want to have the 
best quality of life possible for their loved one who has this 
devastating disease--and they want to be trained. If they don't have 
that ability to learn what tools they can use when someone around them 
just starts forgetting what they said 10 minutes before, they need to 
learn how to take care of them, and many of them want to do that. Our 
bill simply gives them the tools to do that.
  I thank Senator Collins for her longtime leadership.
  I thank Senator Carper, who moved the schedule around a bit so we 
could talk about this important bill.
  I know Senator Collins wishes to speak about this as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, before I speak, I also extend my 
appreciation to the Senator from Delaware.
  I rise today with my friend and colleague from Minnesota, Senator 
Klobuchar, to briefly talk about the bill that we have introduced, the 
Alzheimer's Caregiver Support Act, which would provide training and 
support services for the families and caregivers of people living with 
Alzheimer's and other dementias.
  As many caregivers can attest, Alzheimer's is a devastating disease 
that exacts a tremendous personal and economic toll on individuals, 
families, and our health care system. For example, it is our Nation's 
most costly disease. It is one that affects more than 5.4 million 
Americans, including 37,000 Mainers living with Alzheimer's today. That 
number is soaring as our older population grows older and lives longer.
  Last year and this year, we have done a good job in increasing the 
investment

[[Page S4807]]

in biomedical research that someday will lead to effective treatments, 
a means of prevention, or even a cure for Alzheimer's. But often 
forgotten when we discuss this disease are the caregivers. There are 
many families across this Nation who know all too well the compassion, 
commitment, and endurance it takes to be a caregiver of a loved one 
with Alzheimer's disease.

  When I was in Maine recently, I saw an 89-year-old woman taking care 
of her 90-year-old husband with Alzheimer's. I met a woman in her 
fifties who, with her sisters, was juggling care of their mother along 
with demanding work schedules. I discussed with an elderly husband his 
own health problems as he tries to cope with taking care of his wife's 
dementia. Most important, these caregivers allow many with Alzheimer's 
to remain in the safety and the comfort of their own homes.
  Last year, caregivers of people living with Alzheimer's shouldered 
$10.2 billion in health care costs related to the physical and 
emotional effects of caregiving. And that is why the bill Senator 
Klobuchar and I have introduced is so important. It would help us do 
more to care for our caregivers. It would award grants to public and 
nonprofit organizations like Area Agencies on Aging and senior centers 
to expand training and support services for caregivers of people living 
with Alzheimer's.
  Mr. President, it has been estimated that nearly one out of two of 
the baby boomer generation--our generation--reaching 85 will develop 
Alzheimer's if we are not successful with biomedical research. As a 
result, chances are that members of our generation will either be 
spending their golden years with Alzheimer's or caring for someone who 
has it. It is therefore imperative that we give our family caregivers 
the support they need to provide high-quality care.
  Our legislation has been endorsed by the Alzheimer's Association, the 
Alzheimer's Foundation of America, and UsAgainstAlzheimer's. I urge all 
our colleagues to support it.
  Mr. President, to reiterate I rise today to speak in support of the 
Alzheimer's Caregiver Support Act that I have been pleased to join my 
friend and colleague from Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar, in introducing. 
Our bill would provide training and support services for the families 
and caregivers of people living with Alzheimer's disease or related 
dementias. As many caregivers can attest, Alzheimer's is a devastating 
disease that exacts a tremendous personal and economic toll on 
individuals, families, and our health care system.
  It is our Nation's most costly disease. Approximately 5.4 million 
Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease today, including 37,000 
in Maine, and that number is soaring as our overall population grows 
older and lives longer. If current trends continue, Alzheimer's disease 
could affect as many as 16 million Americans by 2050.
  There are many families across our Nation who know all too well the 
compassion, commitment, and endurance that it takes to be a caregiver 
of a loved one with Alzheimer's disease. Our caregivers devote enormous 
time and attention, and they frequently must make many personal and 
financial sacrifices to ensure that their loved ones have the care they 
need day in and day out. When I was in Maine recently, I saw an 89-year 
old woman taking care of her 90-year old husband with Alzheimer's; a 
woman in her, fifties who with her sisters was juggling care of their 
mother with their work schedules; and an elderly husband trying to cope 
with his own health problems as well as his wife's dementia. Most 
important, however, these caregivers enable many with Alzheimer's to 
remain in the safety and comfort of their own homes.
  According to the Alzheimer's Association, nearly 16 million unpaid 
caregivers provided 18 billion hours of care valued at more than $221 
billion in 2015. These caregivers provide tremendous value, but they 
also face many challenges. Many are employed and struggle to balance 
their work and caregiving responsibilities. They may also be putting 
their own health at risk, since caregivers experience high levels of 
stress and have a greater incidence of chronic conditions like heart 
disease, cancer, and depression. Last year, caregivers of people living 
with Alzheimer's or related dementias shouldered $10.2 billion in 
health care costs related to the physical and emotional effects of 
caregiving.
  The bipartisan legislation we introduced on the last day of June--
which was Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness month--would help us do more 
to care for our caregivers. It would award grants to public and 
nonprofit organizations, like Area Agencies on Aging and senior 
centers, to expand training and support services for the families and 
caregivers of people living with Alzheimer's disease.
  The bill would require these organizations to provide public outreach 
on the services they offer, and ensure that services are provided in a 
culturally appropriate manner. It would also require the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services to coordinate with the Office of Women's 
Health and Office of Minority Health to ensure that women, minorities, 
and medically underserved communities benefit from the program.
  It has been estimated that nearly one in two of the baby boomers 
reaching 85 will develop Alzheimer's. As a result, chances are that 
members of the baby boom generation will either be spending their 
golden years with Alzheimer's or caring for someone who has it. It is 
imperative that we give our family caregivers the support they need to 
provide high quality care to their loved ones. Our legislation has been 
endorsed by the Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Foundation of 
America, and UsAgainstAlzheimer's, and I urge all of our colleagues to 
support it.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, before they leave the floor, I want to say 
a special thanks to Senators Klobuchar and Collins for their leadership 
on this issue. This is one that hits close to home for me and my sister 
and my family. Our mother had Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and her 
mother and grandmother. So this is one I care a lot about, and I 
applaud their efforts to work together on a hugely important issue on a 
personal level as well as a financial one.
  For a long time, I thought Medicaid was a health care program for 
mostly moms and kids. As it turns out, most of the money we spend in 
Medicaid is to enable elderly people, many with dementia, Alzheimer's 
disease, to stay in nursing homes. The lion's share of the money is 
actually for seniors, many of them with dementia and Alzheimer's 
disease. So there is a fiscal component and a personal human component.
  I thank the Senators for this. I have written down the information 
about their bill, and I will be researching it through the night to see 
if I can join them as a cosponsor. I thank them both, and I really 
appreciate what they are doing.


                                  ISIS

  Mr. President, just before Senators Collins and Klobuchar took to the 
floor, one of our colleagues--one of my three favorite Republican 
colleagues--spoke about ISIS and suggested that we are not doing too 
well in the battle against ISIS.
  I have a friend, and when you ask him how he is doing, he says: 
Compared to what? I want to compare now with where we were with ISIS 
about 2 years ago.
  Two years ago, ISIS was on the march. They were almost knocking on 
the door of Baghdad. They stormed through Syria, through much of Iraq, 
headed toward Baghdad, and were stopped almost on the outskirts of 
Baghdad. The question was, Can anybody stop them?
  The United States, under the leadership of our President, and other 
countries said: Let's put together the kind of coalition that George 
Herbert Walker Bush put together when the Iraqis invaded Kuwait many 
years ago.
  Some of us may recall that under the leadership of former President 
Bush, we put together a coalition of I think more than 40 nations. 
Everybody in the coalition brought something to the fight. Among other 
things, we brought some airpower and some troops on the ground. Other 
countries, like the Japanese, didn't send any military forces, but they 
provided money to help support the fight. We had Sunni nations, we had 
Shia nations, and we had nations from NATO. It was a very broad 
coalition, and we were ultimately very successful in pushing Saddam 
Hussein and the Iraqis out of Kuwait and enabling the Kuwaitis--even 
today--to live as a free people.

[[Page S4808]]

  So when we hear people talk about how things are going with respect 
to ISIS, let me say this: Compared to what? Compared to 2 years ago, a 
heck of a lot better--a whole lot better.
  You may remember that 2 years ago, ISIS had the Iraqis on the run. 
The Iraqi soldiers were running away, leaving all kinds of equipment 
behind for the ISIS folks to take over. ISIS came in and took control 
of the oilfields and took over banks and looted them.
  Two years ago, they were attracting 2,000 fighters per month from 
around the world. Every month, 2,000 fighters were going to Iraq and 
Syria to fight with ISIS. How about last month? Two hundred.
  Two years ago, the ISIS folks were attracting 10 Americans per month 
to the fight in Iraq and Syria--10 Americans per month 2 years ago. 
Last month? One American.
  The land mass that the ISIS folks took over to create their caliphate 
was about half of Iraq--not that much, not half of Iraq, but they had 
taken over large parts of Iraq. Today, with the alliance, we have 
retaken I think at least half of that. With American airpower and 
American intelligence, with some support on the ground--but mostly 
Iraqis and Kurds and other components of our coalition have enabled the 
Iraqis to retake what we call the Sunni Triangle, which includes 
Ramadi, Tikrit, and Fallujah. That is the triangle in western Baghdad 
where a whole lot of the Sunnis live. And a lot of the boots on the 
ground were not ours. The boots on the ground were those of the Iraqi 
Army, which is starting to show a sense of cohesiveness and a sense of 
fight we didn't see 2 years ago.
  Up in the northern part of Iraq, there is a big city called Mosul 
which is being surrounded by forces of the alliance that include not so 
much U.S. troops on the ground--we have some support troops on the 
ground. We certainly have airpower there. We are providing a fair 
amount of help in intelligence, and we will have elements of the Kurds, 
their forces, the Iraqi Army, and some other forces, too, surrounding 
Mosul. My hope and expectation--we are not going to rush into it--is 
that we are getting ready to gradually go into that city, try to do it 
in a way the civilians there do not get killed unnecessarily. It is 
something we are going to do right, and I think ultimately we will be 
successful.
  If you go almost due west from Mosul toward Syria, you come to a big 
city called Raqqah, and that is essentially the capital--almost like 
the spiritual capital of the caliphate the ISIS folks are trying to 
establish. Raqqah is now being approached from the southwest by Syrian 
Army forces, some Russian airpower, and for us from the northeast--not 
American ground forces but Kurds and others and US airpower. It is 
almost like a pincer move, if you will. Two forces that are not ours 
but seen as allies--one led by the United States and the other by the 
Russians--are moving in against a common target, and that is Raqqah.
  So how are we doing? Compared to what? Compared to 2 years ago, we 
are doing a heck of a lot better. And it is not just the United States. 
We don't want to have boots on the ground, but there are a lot of ways 
we can help. As it turns out, there are a lot of other nations in our 
coalition that are helping as well.
  So far in this fight in the last 18 months or so, we have killed I 
think over 25,000 ISIS fighters. We have taken out roughly 120 key ISIS 
leaders. We have reduced the funds of ISIS by at least a third. I am 
told that we have cut in half the amount of money they are getting from 
oil reserves, from oil wells and so forth that they had taken over.
  It is not time to spike the football, but I think anybody who wanted 
to be evenhanded in terms of making progress toward degrading and 
destroying ISIS would say it is not time to spike the football but it 
is time to inflate the football.
  We are on the march. We are on the march--and not just us but a lot 
of others. We have two carriers groups, one in the Mediterranean and 
another in the Persian Gulf. I understand that F-16s and F-18s are 
flying off those aircraft in support of these operations. We have B-52s 
still flying. They are operating out of Qatar. We have A-10s operating 
out of someplace. We have to operate flights, I believe, out of Iraq 
and maybe even out of Turkey, maybe even out of Jordan--not necessarily 
all--maybe even out of Kuwait. So there are a lot of assets involved--a 
lot of their assets involved--and I think to good effect.
  I am a retired Navy captain. I served three tours in Southeast Asia 
during the Vietnam war. I am not a hero like John McCain and some of 
our other colleagues, but I know a little bit about doing military 
operations with units of other branches of the service or even in the 
Navy--naval air, working with submarines, working with service ships. 
It is difficult and complicated. Try to do that with other countries 
speaking different languages and having different kinds of military 
traditions and operating norms, and it is not easy to put together a 
16-nation alliance and be an effective fighting machine all at once. 
But we are getting there. We are getting there. We are making progress, 
and I am encouraged.
  But I would say, if I could add one more thing--and then I want to 
talk about what I really wanted to talk about, Mr. President--there is 
a fellow named Peter Bergen who is one of the foremost experts in the 
country and in the world maybe on jihadi terrorism. He points out that 
if you go back to the number of Americans who have been killed since 9/
11 by jihadi terrorists in our country, they have all been killed by 
American citizens or people who are legally residing in this country.
  Part of what we need to do is to make sure folks in this country 
don't get further radicalized. I think one of the best ways to make 
sure they are not going to get radicalized is to not have one of our 
candidates for President saying we ought to throw all the Muslims out 
of this country, send them all home. If that doesn't play into the 
hands of ISIS, I don't know what does. That is not the way to make sure 
we reduce the threat of jihadism in this country; it actually 
incentivizes and is like putting gasoline on the fire.
  What the administration, what the Department of Homeland Security is 
trying to do, and what I am trying to do in our Committee on Homeland 
Security is to make sure we reach out to the Muslim community not with 
a fist and saying ``You are out of here,'' but in the spirit of 
partnership. They do not want their young people to be radicalized and 
go around killing people. That is not what they want. We need to work 
with people of faith, people in the Muslim community, with families, 
and with nonprofit organizations and others to make sure it is clear 
that we see them as an important part of our country. We are not 
interested in throwing them out of this country. There are a lot of 
them making great contributions to this country. We want them to work 
with us and we want to be a partner with them to reduce the incidence 
of terrorism by Muslims and, frankly, any other faith that might be 
radicalized here.
  That isn't why I came to the floor, Mr. President, but I was inspired 
by one of my colleagues whom I greatly admire.


                          Federal Records Act

  What I want to talk about, Mr. President, is something that, when you 
mention it, people really light up. It really excites them; and that is 
the Federal Records Act. It will likely lead the news tonight on all 
the networks. It is actually topical and I think important. Maybe when 
I finish, folks--the pages who are sitting here dutifully listening to 
my remarks--will say: That wasn't so bad. That was pretty interesting.
  So here we go.
  Mr. President, I rise this evening to address the importance of the 
Federal Records Act and the recent attention that has been given to the 
Federal Government's recordkeeping practices during investigations into 
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email 
server.
  Yesterday, as we all know, FBI Director James Comey announced that 
the FBI had completed its investigation into Secretary Clinton's use of 
a personal email server. After an independent and professional review 
that lasted months, the FBI recommended to the Justice Department that 
based on the facts, charges are not appropriate and that ``no 
reasonable prosecutor'' would pursue a case.
  In addition, the State Department's inspector general recently 
concluded

[[Page S4809]]

its review of the recordkeeping practices of several former Secretaries 
of State, including those of Secretary Clinton.
  While these investigations have been the subject of much discussion 
in the media and here in the Senate, I just want to put into context 
the findings and their relation to Federal recordkeeping.
  The truth is, for decades, and across Republican and Democratic 
administrations, the Federal Government has done an abysmal job when it 
comes to preserving electronic records. When Congress passed the 
Federal Records Act over 60 years ago, the goal was to help preserve 
our Nation's history and to ensure that Americans have access to public 
records. As we know, a lot has changed in our country since that time 
due to the evolution of information technology. Today, billions of 
documents that shape the decisions our government makes are never 
written down with pen and paper. Instead, these records are created 
digitally. They are not stored in a filing cabinet, they are not stored 
in a library or an archive somewhere but in computers and in bytes of 
data.

  Because of a slow response to technological change and a lack of 
management attention, agencies have struggled to manage an increasing 
volume of electronic records and in particular email. In fact, the 
National Archives and Records Administration, the agency charged with 
preserving our Nation's records, reported that 80 percent--think about 
this, 80 percent--of agencies are at an elevated risk for the improper 
management of electronic records. As the inspector general's recent 
report showed, the State Department is no exception to this 
governmentwide problem.
  The report found systemic weaknesses at the State Department, which 
has not done a good job for years now when it comes to overseeing 
recordkeeping policies and ensuring that employees not just understand 
what the rules are but actually follow those policies. The report of 
the inspector general and the report of the FBI also found that several 
former Secretaries of State, or their senior advisers, used personal 
emails to conduct official business. Notably, Secretary Kerry is the 
first Secretary of State--I believe in the history of our country--to 
use a state.gov email address, the very first one.
  The fact that recordkeeping has not been a priority at the State 
Department does not come as a surprise, I am sure. In a previous 
report, the inspector general of the State Department found that of the 
roughly 1 billion State Department emails sent in 1 year alone, 2011, 
only .0001 percent of them were saved in an electronic records 
management system. Think about that. How many is that? That means 1 out 
of every roughly 16,000 was saved, if you are keeping score.
  To this day, it remains the policy of the State Department that in 
most cases, each employee must manually choose which emails are work-
related and should be archived and then they print out and file them in 
hard-copy form. Imagine that. We can do better and frankly we must.
  Fortunately, better laws have helped spur action and push the 
agencies to catch up with the changing technologies. In 2014, Congress 
took long-overdue steps to modernize the laws that govern our Federal 
recordkeeping requirements. We did so by adopting amendments to the 
Federal Records Act that were authored by our House colleague Elijah 
Cummings and approved unanimously both by the House of Representatives, 
where he serves, and right here in the United States Senate. Today, 
employees at executive agencies may no longer conduct official business 
over personal emails without ensuring that any records they create in 
their personal accounts are properly archived in an official electronic 
messaging account within 20 days. Had these commonsense measures been 
in place or required when Secretary Clinton and her predecessors were 
in office, the practices identified in the inspector general's report 
would not have persisted over many years and multiple administrations, 
Democratic and Republican. Secretary Clinton, her team, and her 
predecessors would have gotten better guidance from Congress on how the 
Federal Records Act applies to technology that did not exist when the 
law was first passed over 60 years ago.
  Let's move forward. Moving forward, it is important we continue to 
implement the 2014 reforms of the Federal Records Act and improve 
recordkeeping practices throughout the Federal Government in order to 
tackle these longstanding weaknesses. While doing so, it is also 
imperative for us to keep pace as communications technologies continue 
to evolve. While it is not quick or glamorous work, Congress should 
support broad deployment of the National Archives' new record 
management approach called Capstone. Capstone helps agencies 
automatically preserve the email records of its senior officials.
  Now, I understand Secretary Clinton is running for President, and 
some of our friends in Congress have chosen to single her out on these 
issues I think largely for that reason--because she is a candidate--but 
it is important to point out that in past statements, Secretary Clinton 
has repeatedly taken responsibility for her mistakes. She has also 
taken steps to satisfy her obligations under the Federal Records Act. 
The inspector general and the National Archives and Records 
Administration have also acknowledged she mitigated any problems 
stemming from her past email practices by providing 55,000 pages of 
work-related emails to the State Department in December of 2014.
  The vast majority of these emails has now been released publicly 
through the Freedom of Information Act. This is an unprecedented level 
of transparency. Never before have so many emails from a former Cabinet 
Secretary been made public--never. I would encourage the American 
people to read them. What they will show is, among other things, 
someone working late at night, working on weekends, working on holidays 
to help protect American interests. The more you read, the more you 
will understand her service as Secretary of State. She called a dozen 
foreign leaders on Thanksgiving in 2009. What were the rest of us doing 
that day? She discussed the nuclear arms treaty with the Russian 
Ambassador on Christmas Eve. What are most of us doing on Christmas 
Eve? She responded quickly to humanitarian crises like the earthquake 
in Haiti.
  Finally, I should point out that the issue of poor recordkeeping 
practices and personal email use are not unique to this administration 
or to the executive branch. Many in Congress were upset when poor 
recordkeeping practices of President George W. Bush's administration 
resulted in the loss of White House documents and records. I remember 
that. At times, Members of Congress have also used personal email to 
conduct official business, including some who are criticizing Secretary 
Clinton today, despite it being discouraged.
  Now that the FBI has concluded its review, I think it is time to move 
on. Instead of focusing on emails, the American people expect us in 
Congress to fix problems, not to use our time and resources to score 
political points. As I often say, we lead by our example. It is not do 
as I say, but do as I do. All of us should keep this in mind and focus 
on fixing real problems like the American people sent us to do.
  Before I yield, I was privileged to spend some time, as the Presiding 
Officer knows, as Governor of my State for 8 years. After I was elected 
Governor, but before I became Governor, all of us who were newly 
elected and our spouses were invited to new Governors school for new 
Governors and spouses hosted by the National Governors Association. 
That would have been in November of 1993. The new Governors school, for 
new Governors and spouses, was hosted by the NGA, the chairman of the 
National Governors Association, and by the other Governors and their 
spouses within the NGA. They were our faculty, and the rest of us who 
were newbies, newly elected, we were the students. We were the ones 
there to learn. We spent 3 days with veteran Governors and spouses, and 
those of us who were newly elected learned a lot from the folks who had 
been in those chairs for a while as Governors and spouses. One of the 
best lessons I learned during new Governors school that year in 
November of 1992, as a Governor-elect to Delaware, was this--and I 
don't recall whether it was a Republican or Democratic Governor at the 
time, but he said: When you make

[[Page S4810]]

a mistake, don't make it a 1-day problem, a 1-week problem, a 1-month 
problem, or a 1-year problem. When you make a mistake, admit it. That 
is what he said. When you make a mistake, admit it. When you make a 
mistake, apologize. Take the blame. When you have made a mistake, fix 
it, and then move on. I think that is pretty good advice. It helped me 
a whole lot as Governor and has helped me in the United States Senate, 
in my work in Washington with our Presiding Officer on a number of 
issues.

  The other thing I want to say a word about is James Comey. I have 
been privileged to know him for a number of years, when he was 
nominated by our President to head up the FBI and today as he has 
served in this capacity for a number of years. We are lucky. I don't 
know if he is a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, but I know he is 
a great leader. He is about as straight an arrow as they come. He works 
hard--very hard--and provides enlightened leadership, principled 
leadership, for the men and women of the FBI. I want to publicly thank 
him for taking on a tough job and doing it well.
  I hope we will take the time to sift through what he and the FBI have 
found, but in the end, one of the things they found is that after all 
these months and the time and effort that has gone into reviewing the 
email records and practices of Secretary Clinton--which she says she 
regrets. She has apologized for doing it. She said if she had to do it 
all over, she certainly wouldn't do it again, even though it wasn't in 
contravention of the laws we had of email recordkeeping at the time. We 
changed the law in 2014. She has taken the blame. At some point in 
time--we do have some big problems we face, big challenges we face, and 
we need to get to work on those as well.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


            Standards for Protecting Classified Information

  Mr. SASSE. Mr. President, I sprinted to the floor when I saw the 
Senator from Delaware speaking. I have high regard for the Senator from 
Delaware. I think he is a man of integrity who has served his country 
well, both in the Navy and in this body. I have traveled with the man. 
We have explored the Texas-Mexico border before. I think very highly of 
him.
  I wanted to come to the floor and ask, in light of the comments he 
just made about Secretary Clinton, if he has any view about what should 
happen the next time, when a career intelligence or military officer 
leaks classified information. I am curious as to what should happen 
next. And I welcome a conversation with any of the defenders of the 
Secretary of State who want to come to the floor and engage in this 
issue.
  As I see it, one of two things happens the next time a classified 
document is leaked in our intelligence community. Either we are going 
to not prosecute or not pursue the individual who leaks a document that 
compromises national security and compromises potentially the life of 
one of the spies who is out there serving in defense of freedom--and we 
are potentially not going to pursue or prosecute that individual 
because yesterday a decision was made inside the executive branch of 
the United States Government to lower the standards that govern how we 
protect classified information in this country.
  That will be a sad day because it will mean we are a weaker nation 
because we decided to lower those standards, not in this body, not by 
debate, not by passing a law, but a decision will have been made to 
lower the standards by which the U.S. national security secrets are 
protected. Or conversely, a decision will have been made to prosecute 
and pursue that individual for having leaked secrets, at which point 
that individual, his or her spouse and their family and his or her 
peers are going to ask the question, which is, Why is there a different 
standard for me, the career military officer or the career intelligence 
officer, than there is for the politically connected in this country?

  As I see it, we are in danger of doing one of two things: We are 
either going to make the United States less secure by lowering the 
standards that are written in statute about how we govern classified 
information in this country, or we are going to create a two-tier 
system of justice by which the powerful and the politically connected 
are held to a different bar than the people who serve us in the 
military and the intelligence community.
  Again, I have great respect for the senior Senator from Delaware, but 
I listened to his comments. I was in a different meeting, and I saw 
that he was speaking. I unmuted my TV and listened to his comments, and 
I would welcome him to come back to the floor and engage me and explain 
which way he thinks we should go next because one of those two things 
is going to happen the next time a classified document is leaked. 
Either we are going to not pursue that person and we are going to have 
lowered the standards for protecting our Nation's secrets, or we are 
going to pursue that person, which means they will be held to a 
different standard, a higher standard, than the Secretary of State. I 
don't understand that. I don't understand why anybody in this body 
would think either of those two outcomes is a good thing.
  We do many, many things around here. A small subset of them are 
really important. Lots of them aren't very important. This is a 
critically important matter. This body and this Congress exist for the 
purpose of fulfilling our article I obligations under the Constitution. 
The American system of government is about limited government because 
we know, as Madison said, that we need government in the world because 
men aren't angels, and we need divided government; we need checks and 
balances in our government. We need three branches of government 
because those of us who govern are not angels.
  We distinguish in our Constitution between a legislative, executive, 
and a judicial branch, and this body--the legislative branch--is 
supposed to be the body that passes the laws because the people are 
supposed to be in charge, and they can hire and fire those of us who 
serve here. Laws should be made in this body, not in the executive 
branch. The executive branch's obligations are to faithfully execute 
the laws that are passed in this body.
  If we are going to change the standards by which our Nation's secrets 
are protected, by which classified information is governed, we should 
do that in a deliberative process here. We should pass a law in the 
House and in the Senate so that if the voters--if the 320 million 
Americans, the ``we the people'' who are supposed to be in charge, 
disagree about the decisions that are made in this body, they are 
supposed to be able to fire us.
  The people of America don't have any way to fire somebody inside an 
executive branch agency. Deliberation about the laws and the standards 
that govern our national security should be done here, and the laws 
should be made here.
  For those who want to defend Secretary Clinton, I am very curious if 
they would explain to us which way they want it to go the next time a 
classified secret is leaked because either we are going to have 
standards or we are not going to have standards. If we are not going to 
have standards, that is going to make our Nation weaker. If we are 
going to have standards, they should apply equally to everyone because 
we believe in equality under the law in this country.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. RUBIO. 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. RUBIO. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                  Central Everglades Planning Project

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, as you and others are well aware, Florida 
is often associated with its crystal blue waters, sport and commercial 
fishing,

[[Page S4811]]

and pristine vacation destinations. This summer, a thick and putrid 
algal bloom known as the blue-green algae is threatening all of that 
and much more along large stretches of the St. Lucie River and the 
Indian River Lagoon.
  On Friday, I visited the area, and I can tell you this is an economic 
disaster in addition to an ecological crisis. I met many of the people 
whose lives have been thrown into turmoil. The algae has forced the 
closure of several beaches. Even this morning we were hearing reports 
of a surf camp where kids go out and learn how to surf and paddle board 
and so forth. They sign up in the summer to do this, and they are 
having parents canceling, and in some cases having to cancel themselves 
because of this.
  There were beaches closed during the Fourth of July, which is the 
peak season for many of these resorts, hotels, and local businesses. 
That is why I say they have been thrown into turmoil. Beyond that, this 
algae bloom is killing fish and oysters. It is hurting tourism. It is 
harming local businesses. It is sinking property values.
  Imagine if you just bought a home on the water there--the values are 
largely tied to access to water and the boat dock--and now you step 
outside, and sitting right there on your porch, basically, there is a 
thick green slime that some have compared to guacamole sitting on the 
surface of the ocean. You can imagine what that is doing to property 
values. Parents, of course, are viewing all of this and are concerned 
for the health of their children. There are a number of things we can 
do to address this immediately, and I have been working to make these 
things happen.
  First of all, let me describe how this is happening. This is 
happening because nutrient-rich water--water that has things in it like 
fertilizer--is running into Lake Okeechobee, which is at the center of 
the State. It is the largest inland body of water in the State. 
Historically, the water that sat in Lake Okeechobee would run southward 
into the Everglades. With development, canal systems, and so forth, 
that all stopped.
  Now this water is held back by a dike, which is put in place to 
prevent flooding. When the waters need to be released, they are 
released east and west. These waters are already rich in nutrients in 
Lake Okeechobee, and then they are released into the estuaries and 
canals, which also have nutrients in them because of runoff from faulty 
and old septic tanks. When these things reach the ocean, when they 
reach the estuaries, when they reach the lagoon or the lake or the 
river and they get into this heat, the result is what we are seeing 
now.
  Last week I wrote the Army Corps of Engineers, and I urged them to 
stop the discharges from Lake Okeechobee until the balance and health 
of the ecosystem in the area can recover. By the way, these discharges 
have been ongoing since January of this year, which has lowered 
salinity levels, and it caused the algae to bloom. I also invited the 
Assistant Secretary of the Army Corps to visit the area so they can 
witness the conditions firsthand.
  I was pleased that after my request the Army Corps announced it would 
decrease the discharges but, of course, much more needs to be done. My 
office has also been working with the Small Business Administration for 
months now on the harmful impact of these discharges. In April, we were 
able to ensure disaster loans were made available to businesses 
suffering from the discharges. Just yesterday, we were able to confirm 
that the disaster loans will apply to those currently affected by the 
current algal blooms.
  Perhaps the most important long-term solution that we can put in 
place is for the Senate and the House to pass and the President to sign 
the authorization for the Central Everglades Planning Project. The 
Central Everglades Planning Project will divert these harmful 
discharges away from the coastlines and send more water south through 
the Everglades.
  This is a project I had hoped would have been authorized in the last 
water resources bill in 2014, but delays by the administration in 
releasing the final Chiefs report prevented that from happening in 
2014. Thanks to the leadership of Chairman Inhofe, the Central 
Everglades Planning Project is included in the EPW committee-reported 
Water Resources Development Act of 2016.
  Last week, I joined 29 of my colleagues in urging our leaders to 
bring this important bill before the full Senate. I plan to continue 
this support, and I hope we are able to get the Central Everglades 
Planning Project signed into law as soon as possible.
  Finally, we also need to know the long-term health risks posed by 
this algal bloom. I mentioned a moment ago that many parents are 
concerned about the safety of their kids as they play outside this 
summer. Let me tell you why they are concerned. The algae I saw lining 
the shores and in the coves and inlets will literally make you sick. 
There are already people complaining of headaches, rashes, and 
respiratory issues.
  At Central Marine in Stuart, you could not stand outside near the 
water and breathe the air without literally feeling sick. The smell is 
indescribable. The best thing I can use to describe it is if you opened 
up a septic tank or opened sewage in a third world country--that is how 
nasty this stuff is.
  By the way, when it dies, it turns this dark green-blue color, and 
then it becomes even more toxic. No one knows how to remove it. No one 
knows what is going to happen to it after it dies, except it is going 
to sit there. That is why we have been in contact with the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention, which has been working with State 
officials, and I requested that they keep me informed and that they 
remain vigilant in their efforts to assist those impacted by the algae.
  This is truly a crisis for the State of Florida, but we are fortunate 
that Florida is well equipped to handle this issue. I have spoken to 
the Governor and to key officials on the ground about this. This should 
continue to be a joint effort by the Federal and State governments. 
Should the government decide this warrants a Federal disaster 
declaration, I will urge the President to approve it. That means that 
more resources could flow to those who have been negatively impacted by 
this, especially small businesses that have seen themselves in the peak 
season truly hurt by this event.
  In the meantime, Florida continues to face this serious problem, and 
unfortunately there simply is no silver bullet. Its effects will linger 
for quite some time. For people who are suffering through this right 
now, that is not a promising thing for me to say. If that were my house 
facing this algae, if that were my business wiped out with the 
cancelations, I would be angry too.
  It is important to remember this is not just an ecological crisis; it 
is a tragedy for the people on the Treasure Coast who have had to watch 
this algae threaten their communities and their livelihoods. This is a 
heated issue, as you can imagine, because we are talking about people's 
homes. We are talking about a way of life. Many people came up to me 
and said they grew up in the area, they remember the days where their 
whole summers were spent near that water, and now they can't even go in 
it. When we see a place as naturally beautiful as the Treasure Coast 
looking and smelling like an open sewer, you have a visceral and angry 
reaction to it. I know that I did.
  Sadly, whenever there are emotional and heated issues like these, 
people on both sides are willing to exploit them. Anyone who tells you 
they have the silver bullet answer to this problem is simply not 
telling the truth. They are lying. I have talked to experts, dozens of 
them. I visited with people across the spectrum on this issue, and the 
reality is that solving this issue will take time, persistence, and a 
number of things. There is no single thing we can do. There are a 
number of things, and they all have to happen in order for this to get 
better.
  These problems have existed for decades. This didn't happen 
overnight. This isn't something that started 2 weeks ago. This has been 
going on for decades. I have now been a Senator for a little less than 
6 years, and in my time here, we have made steady progress on this 
issue. But it is not coming as fast as I would like, and it is not 
coming as fast as the people of the Treasure Coast need. The worst 
thing we could do right now is to divert critical resources from a plan 
that will work, from a plan designed by scientists, from a plan 
designed by experts that will work, but we have to put that plan in 
place.

[[Page S4812]]

  That is why I once again urge my colleagues to move forward on the 
Central Everglades Planning Project. It will allow us to begin the 
process of authorizing these important projects that will not only 
retain more water but will result in cleaner water going into Lake 
Okeechobee, cleaner water flowing out of Lake Okeechobee, and cleaner 
water moving south into the Everglades, the way it should be flowing 
and not east and west into these impacted communities.
  I am calling the Presiding Officer's attention to this because, as I 
have detailed, this is far from being merely a State issue. We do have 
our work cut out for us on the Federal level to help get this solved, 
but I am committed to this task. I ask my colleagues for their 
assistance so we can ensure that 5 and 10 years from now we are not 
still here talking about this happening all over again.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 20 minutes, although I don't think I will 
use it all.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the 143rd time now to 
urge Congress to wake up to the damage that carbon pollution is 
inflicting on our atmosphere and oceans and to make a record for when 
people look back at this time and at this place and wonder why Congress 
was so unresponsive in the face of all of the information.
  What are we up against that has prevented progress? What we are up 
against is a many-tentacled, industry-controlled apparatus that is 
deliberately polluting our discourse in this Nation with phony climate 
denial. That apparatus runs in parallel with a multi-hundred million 
dollar electioneering effort that tells politicians: If you don't buy 
what the apparatus is selling, you will be in political peril.
  As we look at the apparatus that is propagating this phony climate 
denial, there is a growing body of scholarship that helps us that is 
examining this apparatus, how it is funded, how it communicates, and 
how it propagates the denial message. It includes work by Harvard 
University's Naomi Oreskes, Michigan State's Aaron McCright, Oklahoma 
State's Riley Dunlap, Yale's Justin Farrell, and Drexel University's 
Robert Brulle, but it is not just them. There are a lot of academic 
folk working on this to the point where there are now more than 100 
peer-reviewed scientific articles examining this climate denial 
apparatus itself. These scientists are doing serious and groundbreaking 
work.
  Dr. Brulle, for instance, has just been named the 2016 recipient of 
the American Sociological Association's Frederick Buttel Distinguished 
Contribution Award, the highest honor in American environmental 
sociology. Dr. Brulle has also won, along with Professor Dunlap, the 
American Sociological Association's Allan Schnaiberg Outstanding 
Publication Award for their book ``Climate Change and Society.'' The 
work of all of these academic researchers maps out an intricate, 
interconnected propaganda web which encompasses over 100 organizations, 
including trade associations, conservative so-called think tanks, 
foundations, public relations firms, and plain old phony-baloney 
polluter front groups. A complex flow of cash, now often hidden by 
donors' trusts and other such identity-laundering operations, support 
this apparatus. The apparatus is, in the words of Professor Farrell, 
``overtly producing and promoting skepticism and doubt about scientific 
consensus on climate change.''

  The climate denial apparatus illuminated by their scholarship is part 
of the untold story behind our obstructed American climate change 
politics.
  This apparatus is huge. Phony-baloney front organizations are set up 
by the score to obscure industry's hand. Phony messaging is honed by 
public relations experts to sow doubt about the real scientific 
consensus. Stables of payrolled scientists are trotted out on call to 
perform. Professor Brulle likens it to a stage production.

       Like a play on Broadway, the countermovement has stars in 
     the spotlight--often prominent contrarian scientists or 
     conservative politicians--but behind the stars is an 
     organizational structure of directors, script writers, and 
     producers, in the form of conservative foundations. If you 
     want to understand what is driving this movement, you have to 
     look at what is going on behind the scenes.

  The whole apparatus is designed to be big and sophisticated enough 
that when you see its many parts, you can be fooled into thinking it is 
not all the same animal, but it is, just like the mythological Hydra--
many heads, same beast.
  The apparatus is huge because it has a lot to protect. The 
International Monetary Fund has pegged what it calls the effective 
subsidy to the fossil fuel industry every year in the United States 
alone at nearly $700 billion. That is a lot to protect.
  Here is one other measure. The Center for American Progress has 
tallied the carbon dioxide emissions from the power producers involved 
in the lawsuit to block implementation of President Obama's Clean Power 
Plan, either directly or through their trade groups. It turns out they 
have a lot of pollution to protect. The companies affiliated with that 
lawsuit were responsible for nearly 1.2 billion tons of carbon 
pollution in 2013. That is one-fifth of the entire carbon output in our 
entire country, and 1.2 billion tons makes these polluters, if they 
were their own country, the sixth biggest CO2 emitter in the 
world--more than Germany or Canada. Using the Office of Management and 
Budget's social cost of carbon, that is a polluter cost to the rest of 
us of $50 billion every year. When this crowd comes to the court, they 
come with very dirty hands and for very high stakes.
  Not only is this apparatus huge, it is also complex. It is organized 
into multiple levels. Rich Fink is the former President of the Charles 
G. Koch Charitable Foundation. He has outlined the model they use 
called the ``Structure of Social Change'' to structure what he called 
``the distinct roles of universities, think tanks, and activist groups 
in the transformation of ideas into action.''
  As a Koch-funded grantmaker out to pollute the public mind, the Koch 
Foundation realized that multiple levels were necessary for successful 
propaganda production. They went at it this way: The ``intellectual raw 
materials'' were to be produced by scholars funded at universities, 
giving the product some academic credibility. I think at this point, 
Koch funding reaches into as many as 300 college campuses to create 
this so-called intellectual raw material. Then think tanks and policy 
institutions mold these ideas and market them as ``needed solutions for 
real-world problems.'' I guess they are using the technique of ``think 
tank as disguised political weapon'' described by Jane Mayer in her 
terrific book ``Dark Money.''
  Then comes what we would call ``astroturf''--citizen implementation 
groups ``build diverse coalitions of individual citizens and special 
interest groups needed to press for the implementation of policy 
change'' at the ground level. So the apparatus is organized not unlike 
a company would set up manufacturing, marketing, and sales.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
Mr. Fink's ``The Structure of Social Change.''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From libertyguide.com, Oct. 18, 2012]

                     The Structure of Social Change

    (By Rich Fink, President, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation)


                           why public policy?

       Universities, think tanks, and citizen activist groups all 
     present competing claims for being the best place to invest 
     resources. As grant-makers, we hear the pros and cons of the 
     different kinds of institutions seeking funding.
       The universities claim to be the real source of change. 
     They give birth to the big ideas that provide the 
     intellectual framework for social transformation. While this 
     is true, critics contend that investing in universities 
     produces no tangible results for many years or even decades. 
     Also, since

[[Page S4813]]

     many academics tend to talk mostly to their colleagues in the 
     specialized languages of their respective disciplines, their 
     research, even if relevant, usually needs to be adapted 
     before it is useful in solving practical problems.
       The think tanks and policy development organizations argue 
     that they are most worthy of support because they work on 
     real-world policy issues, not abstract concepts. They 
     communicate not just among themselves, but are an immediate 
     source of policy ideas for the White House, Congress, and the 
     media. They claim to set the action agenda that leaders in 
     government follow. Critics observe, however, that there is a 
     surfeit of well-funded think tanks, producing more position 
     papers and books than anyone could ever possibly read. Also, 
     many policy proposals, written by ``wonks'' with little 
     experience outside the policy arena, lack realistic 
     implementation or transition plans. And all too often, think 
     tanks gauge their success in terms of public relations 
     victories measured in inches of press coverage, rather than 
     more meaningful and concrete accomplishments.
       Citizen activist or implementation groups claim to merit 
     support because they are the most effective at really 
     accomplishing things. They are fighting in the trenches, and 
     this is where the war is either won or lost. They directly 
     produce results by rallying support for policy change. 
     Without them, the work of the universities and policy 
     institutes would always remain just so many words on paper, 
     instead of leading to real changes in people's lives.
       Others point out, however, that their commitment to action 
     comes at a price. Because activist groups are remote from the 
     universities and their framework of ideas, they often lose 
     sight of the big picture. Their necessary association with 
     diverse coalitions and politicians may make them too willing 
     to compromise to achieve narrow goals.
       Many of the arguments advanced for and against investing at 
     the various levels are valid. Each type of institute at each 
     stage has its strengths and weaknesses. But more importantly, 
     we see that institutions at all stages are crucial to 
     success. While they may compete with one another for funding 
     and often belittle each other's roles, we view them as 
     complementary institutions, each critical for social 
     transformation.


                      Hayek's Model of Production

       Our understanding of how these institutions ``fit 
     together'' is derived from a model put forward by the Nobel 
     laureate economist Friedrich Hayek.
       Hayek's model illustrates how a market economy is 
     organized, and has proven useful to students of economics for 
     decades. While Hayek's analysis is complicated, even a 
     modified, simplistic version can yield useful insights.
       Hayek described the ``structure of production'' as the 
     means by which a greater output of ``consumer goods'' is 
     generated through savings that are invested in the 
     development of ``producer goods''--goods not produced for 
     final consumption.
       The classic example in economics is how a stranded Robinson 
     Crusoe is at first compelled to fish and hunt with his hands. 
     He only transcends subsistence when he hoards enough food to 
     sustain himself while he fashions a fishing net, a spear, or 
     some other producer good that increases his production of 
     consumer goods. This enhanced production allows even greater 
     savings, hence greater investment and development of more 
     complex and indirect production technologies.
       In a developed economy, the ``structure of production'' 
     becomes quite complicated, involving the discovery of 
     knowledge and integration of diverse businesses whose success 
     and sustainability depend on the value they add to the 
     ultimate consumer. Hayek's model explains how investments in 
     an integrated structure of production yield greater 
     productivity over less developed or less integrated 
     economies.
       By analogy, the model can illustrate how investment in the 
     structure of production of ideas can yield greater social and 
     economic progress when the structure is well-developed and 
     well-integrated. For simplicity's sake, I am using a snapshot 
     of a developed economy, as Hayek did in parts of Prices and 
     Production, and I am aggregating a complex set of businesses 
     into three broad categories or stages of production. The 
     higher stages represent investments and businesses involved 
     in the enhanced production of some basic inputs we will call 
     ``raw materials.'' The middle stages of production are 
     involved in converting these raw materials into various types 
     of products that add more value than these raw materials have 
     if sold directly to consumers. In this model, the later 
     stages of production are involved in the packaging, 
     transformation, and distribution of the output of the middle 
     stages to the ultimate consumers.
       Hayek's theory of the structure of production can also help 
     us understand how ideas are transformed into action in our 
     society. Instead of the transformation of natural resources 
     to intermediate goods to products that add value to 
     consumers, the model, which I call the Structure of Social 
     Change, deals with the discovery, adaptation, and 
     implementation of ideas into change that increases the well-
     being of citizens. Although the model helps to explain many 
     forms of social change, I will focus here on the type I know 
     best--change that results from the formation of public 
     policy.


                         Applying Hayek's Model

       When we apply this model to the realm of ideas and social 
     change, at the higher stages we have the investment in the 
     intellectual raw materials, that is, the exploration and 
     production of abstract concepts and theories. In the public 
     policy arena, these still come primarily (though not 
     exclusively) from the research done by scholars at our 
     universities. At the higher stages in the Structure of Social 
     Change model, ideas are often unintelligible to the layperson 
     and seemingly unrelated to real-world problems. To have 
     consequences, ideas need to be transformed into a more 
     practical or useable form.
       In the middle stages, ideas are applied to a relevant 
     context and molded into needed solutions for real-world 
     problems. This is the work of the think tanks and policy 
     institutions. Without these organizations, theory or abstract 
     thought would have less value and less impact on our society.
       But while the think tanks excel at developing new policy 
     and articulating its benefits, they are less able to 
     implement change. Citizen activist or implementation groups 
     are needed in the final stage to take the policy ideas from 
     the think tanks and translate them into proposals that 
     citizens can understand and act upon. These groups are also 
     able to build diverse coalitions of individual citizens and 
     special interest groups needed to press for the 
     implementation of policy change.
       We at the Koch Foundation find that the Structure of Social 
     Change model helps us to understand the distinct roles of 
     universities, think tanks, and activist groups in the 
     transformation of ideas into action. We invite you to 
     consider whether Hayek's model, on which ours is based, is 
     useful in your philanthropy. Though I have confined my 
     examples to the realm of public policy, the model clearly has 
     much broader social relevance.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, investigative books, journalists' 
reporting, and academic studies repeatedly compare the climate denial 
effort to the fraud scheme that was run by the tobacco industry to 
disguise the harms of smoking. When I was a U.S. attorney, the Justice 
Department pursued and ultimately won a civil lawsuit against tobacco 
companies for that fraud. When I was here in the Senate, I wrote an 
opinion piece about a possible DOJ investigation into the fossil fuel 
industry fraud on climate change. This gave me a new appreciation of 
the apparatus in action. In response came an eruption of dozens of 
rightwing editorials, most of which interestingly were virtually 
identical, with common misstatements of law and common omissions of 
facts. The eruption recurred some months later in response to me asking 
Attorney General Lynch about such an investigation when she was before 
us during a hearing of the Judiciary Committee.
  Virtually every author or outlet in these eruptions was a persistent 
climate denier. Common markers in the published pieces seemed to point 
to a central script. When multiple authors all say something that is 
true, that is not necessarily noteworthy, but when multiple authors are 
all repeating the same falsehoods, that is a telling fingerprint. I 
happened to notice this because unlike most people, I get my news clips 
so I saw all these articles as they emerged in this eruption that took 
place. The articles regularly confused civil law with criminal law, 
suggesting that I wanted to ``slap the cuffs'' on people or 
``prosecute'' people when the tobacco case was a civil case, and in a 
civil case there are no handcuffs. The articles almost always 
overlooked the fact that the government won the tobacco fraud lawsuit 
and won it big. The pieces usually said my target was something other 
than the big industry protagonist. My targets were described as 
``climate dissidents'' or ``independent thought'' or ``scientists'' and 
``the scientific method'' or even just ``people who just disagree with 
me.'' Nothing like that transpired in the tobacco fraud case, 
obviously.
  Time and time again, the articles wrongly asserted that any 
investigation into potential fraud by this climate denial apparatus 
would be a violation of the First Amendment. This was a particularly 
telling marker because it is actually settled law--including from the 
tobacco case itself--that fraud is not protected under the First 
Amendment. So the legal arguments were utterly false, but nevertheless 
the apparatus was prolific. They cranked out over 100 articles in all 
in those two eruptions.
  Now the State attorneys general who have stepped up to investigate 
whether the fossil fuel industry and its front groups engaged in a 
fraud have faced a similar backlash. First came the editorial barrage, 
often from the same outlets and authors as mine and usually with the 
same false arguments.

[[Page S4814]]

Then, Republicans on the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology 
Committee sent the attorneys general letters with a barrage of demands 
to discourage and disrupt their inquiries. A group of Republican State 
attorneys general even issued a letter decrying the efforts of their 
investigating colleagues. All of them insisted the First Amendment 
should prevent any investigation.
  In one ironic example, the Koch-backed front group Americans for 
Prosperity rode to the rescue of the Koch-backed Competitive Enterprise 
Institute, one of the climate denial mouthpieces under investigation. 
The Koch-backed front group Americans for Prosperity announced it was 
joining a coalition of 47 other groups to support what it called ``a 
fight for free speech,'' but according to realkochfacts.org, 43 of the 
47 groups in that so-called coalition also have ties to the Kochs, and 
28 of them are directly funded by the Kochs and their family 
foundations. Welcome to the apparatus.
  The Koch brothers' puppet groups claim to stand united against what 
Americans for Prosperity described as ``an affront to the First 
Amendment rights of all Americans,'' but scroll back, and the tobacco 
companies and their front groups and Republican allies made exactly the 
same argument against the Department of Justice's civil racketeering 
lawsuit--the one the Department of Justice won.
  Big Tobacco's appeal in court argued that, quoting the appeal, ``the 
First Amendment would not permit Congress to enact a law that so 
criminalized one side of an ongoing legislative and public debate 
because the industry's opinions differed from the government or 
`consensus' view.''
  How did they do? They lost. They lost because the case was about 
fraud, not differences of opinion. Courts can tell the difference 
between fraud and differences of opinion. They do it all the time. 
Fraud has specific legal requirements. The courts in the tobacco case 
held firmly that the Constitution holds no protection for fraud--zero--
and the tobacco industry had to stop the fraud. Now the fossil fuel 
industry says it is different from the tobacco industry while it uses 
the very same argument as the tobacco schemers.
  To really appreciate how bogus the First Amendment argument is, think 
through what it would mean if fraudulent corporate speech were 
protected by the First Amendment. Out would go State and Federal laws 
protecting us from deceitful misrepresentations about products. 
Consumer protection offices around the country would shrivel or shut 
their doors, and it would be open season on the American consumer. That 
is a dark world to envision, but it is the world that results if 
corporate lies about the safety of their products or industrial 
processes are placed beyond the reach of the law. I say lies because 
you have to be lying for it to be fraud.
  This begs the question of whether there is really a difference of 
opinion about climate change among scientists. Last week, 31 leading 
national scientific organizations, including the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science, the American Meteorological Society, 
the American Geophysical Union, and 28 others sent Members of Congress 
a no-nonsense message that human-caused climate change is real, that it 
poses serious risks to society, and that we need to substantially 
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They told us this:

       Observations throughout the world make it clear that 
     climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research 
     concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human 
     activities are the primary driver. This conclusion is based 
     on multiple independent lines of evidence and the vast body 
     of peer-reviewed science.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
the letter from the 39 scientific organizations.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                    June 28, 2016.
       Dear Members of Congress: We, as leaders of major 
     scientific organizations, write to remind you of the 
     consensus scientific view of climate change.
       Observations throughout the world make it clear that 
     climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research 
     concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human 
     activities are the primary driver. This conclusion is based 
     on multiple independent lines of evidence and the vast body 
     of peer-reviewed science.
       There is strong evidence that ongoing climate change is 
     having broad negative impacts on society, including the 
     global economy, natural resources, and human health. For the 
     United States, climate change impacts include greater threats 
     of extreme weather events, sea level rise, and increased risk 
     of regional water scarcity, heat waves, wildfires, and the 
     disturbance of biological systems. The severity of climate 
     change impacts is increasing and is expected to increase 
     substantially in the coming decades.
       To reduce the risk of the most severe impacts of climate 
     change, greenhouse gas emissions must be substantially 
     reduced. In addition, adaptation is necessary to address 
     unavoidable consequences for human health and safety, food 
     security, water availability, and national security, among 
     others.
       We, in the scientific community, are prepared to work with 
     you on the scientific issues important to your deliberations 
     as you seek to address the challenges of our changing 
     climate.

     American Association for the Advancement of Science
     American Chemical Society
     American Geophysical Union
     American Institute of Biological Sciences
     American Meteorological Society
     American Public Health Association
     American Society of Agronomy
     American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
     American Society of Naturalists
     American Society of Plant Biologists
     American Statistical Association
     Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography
     Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation
     Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
     BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium
     Botanical Society of America
     Consortium for Ocean Leadership
     Crop Science Society of America
     Ecological Society of America
     Entomological Society of America
     Geological Society of America
     National Association of Marine Laboratories
     Natural Science Collections Alliance
     Organization of Biological Field Stations
     Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
     Society for Mathematical Biology
     Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
     Society of Nematologists
     Society of Systematic Biologists
     Soil Science Society of America
     University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That letter is the voice of fact, of scientific 
analysis, and of reason.
  Up against it is the apparatus. The apparatus has the money. The 
apparatus has the slick messaging. The apparatus has the political 
clout. It has that parallel election spending muscle, it has the 
lobbying armada, and it has that array of outlets willing to print 
falsehoods about climate change and, for that matter, about fraud and 
the First Amendment.
  The scientists? Well, they have the expertise, the knowledge, and the 
facts. Whose side we choose to take says a lot about who we are.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________