[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 109 (Thursday, July 7, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4841-S4910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       NATIONAL SEA GRANT COLLEGE PROGRAM AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2015

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the House message to accompany S. 764, which 
the clerk will report.
  The bill 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.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


            Auditing the Books of the Department of Defense

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to send a 
message to Secretary of Defense Carter. I wish to alert him to a 
problem that needs high-level attention. It is standing in the way of 
one of the top priority goals of the Congress--auditing the books of 
the Defense Department.
  The need for annual financial audits was originally established by 
the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. By March of 1992, each agency 
of the Federal Government was supposed to present a financial statement 
to an inspector general for audit in accordance with the prescribed 
standards. To date, all departments have earned unqualified or clean 
opinions. But there is one glaring exception; that is, the Defense 
Department. It has a dubious distinction, under both Republican and 
Democrat administrations, of earning an unblemished string of failing 
opinions known as ``disclaimers.''
  In the face of endless slipping and stumbling, Congress finally 
cracked down--except it looks as though the crackdown hasn't done any 
good. At that time, there was a new line drawn in the sand. It was 
placed in section 1003 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 
2009. In 2009, the Department was given a charitable 7-year reprieve 
from the requirement to have their books auditable, and it was given 
until September 30, 2017. Those 7 bonus years did not buy us in the 
Congress much. All the slipping and sliding and stumbling have 
continued undiminished.
  The 25-year push to audit the books is stuck at a roadblock. Billions 
of dollars have been spent trying to solve the root cause of the 
problem, but the fix is nowhere in sight. And until it is, auditing the 
books will remain an elusive goal for the Department of Defense but a 
goal that has been met by every other agency of the Federal Government.
  What I am talking about is the Department's broken accounting system. 
This problem has been a festering sore for many years. It adversely 
affected every facet of the audit effort. The broken accounting system 
is driving the audit freight train. How could the mighty Defense 
Department be buffaloed for so long by something so simple? The 
Pentagon develops and produces the most advanced weapons the world has 
ever known and does it with relative ease. Yet the Defense Department 
can't seem to acquire the tools it needs to keep track of the money it 
spends.
  With little or no fiscal accountability, Congress cannot exercise 
effective oversight of defense spending. If Congress can't do that, 
then adding money to the defense budget, and borrowing at the same time 
to do it, is foolish, in my book. That is precisely why I opposed a 
recent amendment to add $18 billion to the Defense bill.
  I want to take a moment to put my spotlight on the issue. My hope is 
to stimulate creative problem-solving and innovative solutions that 
seem to not be getting their proper attention at the Department of 
Defense.
  A recent press report pinpointed the cause for all the stumbling that 
is going on at the Defense Department. It drew on testimony by the 
government's preeminent authority on accounting, Comptroller General 
Gene Dodaro. His testimony before the Senate Committee on the Budget 
had a razor-sharp edge. It zeroed right in on the old stumbling block--
underlying accounting problems. While the Pentagon is spending in 
excess of $10 billion a year to modernize its vast accounting system, 
the GAO director said these investments ``have not yielded positive 
results.'' And since DOD officials ``continue to make system 
investments that don't produce better systems,'' he said, those 
responsible ``need to be held accountable.'' They are wasting money, in 
other words. As a clear, unambiguous indicator of the continuing 
accounting mess, he cited

[[Page S4842]]

in excess of $1 billion in Antideficiency Act violations incurred by 
DOD. The Antideficiency Act violations, according to the Comptroller 
General, means the Department is ``spending money that it should not be 
spending.''
  I agree with the Comptroller General. That is what I call unlawful 
spending. A good accounting system, one with effective internal 
controls, should be able to detect and should be able to stop illegal 
spending and particularly fraud and theft. What is in place today 
doesn't accomplish that goal. Unauthorized spending is usually 
discovered, instead, by chance and long after the fact.
  When asked how much of DOD's $600 billion in yearly expenditures is 
actually accounted for, the Comptroller General stated bluntly--his 
words--``very little.'' The Comptroller General's assessment is a very 
bruising indictment of how the taxpayers' precious money is mishandled 
in the Pentagon.
  The Secretary of Defense has a fiduciary responsibility under the 
Constitution and under the law to account for every penny spent. None 
has honored that responsibility. One Secretary of State, however, made 
a good-faith effort. Leon Panetta formally launched the audit readiness 
initiative in October of 2011. While giving it a big boost with 
visibility, this effort sputtered to a standstill, like all the others, 
over the past decades.
  During Secretary Carter's nomination hearing, Senator Manchin of West 
Virginia questioned him about the faltering efforts to audit the 
Defense Department. The Secretary replied: ``I am committed on the 
audit front.'' In response to a followup question, he stated: I will 
hold the Chief Financial Officer ``responsible and accountable for 
making auditability one of my top business reform priorities.'' During 
a meeting in my office, he provided me similar assurances. These solemn 
vows don't give me a whole lot of confidence. His predecessors spoke 
the same words, but all we see is a trail of broken promises.
  To win this war on making the books auditable, it will take 
perseverance and guts. It will take top-notch, hands-on leadership 
skills and a chief financial officer who grasps the root cause problem 
and is committed to solving it.
  In watchdogging the audit process for years, I have come to know the 
underlying problem all too well. I have been down in the trenches and 
have seen it up close with my own eyes. I was introduced to the problem 
when it just popped up right in the face. It came in the form of 
unusual notations in audit reports published by the inspector general. 
They read: ``No audit trail found.'' That red flag prompted me to dig 
deeper. So I asked: How do you perform financial audits with no money 
trail to follow?
  The answer: You don't, except with great difficulty, risk, and 
expense.
  One question led to another and eventually to my first indepth audit 
oversight report. It was published in September 2010. It zeroed right 
in on the root cause problem. I call it the audit-accounting mismatch.
  My observations were derived mainly from reviewing Corps of Engineers 
audits for fiscal years 2008 to 2010. These were some of the 
Department's earliest attempts to comply with the Chief Financial 
Officers Act, requiring all agencies of the government to have 
auditability of their books.
  The results of my study were mixed. This work provided a startling 
introduction to a problem. During extensive interviews, senior managers 
readily admitted that auditors had to do manual workarounds that are 
prone to errors. They could not connect the dots between contracts and 
payments and accounting records and make the necessary match-ups. 
Transactions were not properly posted to accounts and supporting 
documentation had gone missing. In fact, financial records were so bad 
it took hundreds of highly paid certified public accountants doing 
manual labor, characterized as ``audit trail reconstruction work'' or 
``pick-and-shovel work'' to finish the job. Such labor-intensive 
accounting procedures are very costly--$50 million for the Corps of 
Engineers alone--and leave gaping holes in audit evidence even after it 
is spent. Such unorthodox procedures place outcomes on very shaky 
ground.
  True, these observations were made 5 years ago, but I keep running 
into the same old problems. For example, I am seeing it again today in 
my ongoing inquiry into the Department's Task Force for Business and 
Stability Operations in Afghanistan. I see it everywhere I go.
  The recently concluded Marine Corps audit is a perfect example of the 
same old problem. The broken accounting system is still driving the 
audit freight train. The Marine Corps, which is the smallest of the 
military services, had been claiming for several years that it was 
audit ready. However, when the time came, the Marine Corps flunked the 
test. Oversight audits by the inspector general and the Government 
Accountability Office concluded there was not sufficient, appropriate 
audit evidence to support a clean opinion. The transaction data was 
largely incomplete, unreliable, unverifiable, and unsupportable. In the 
opinion of the experts, the final call ``was not even close.''
  When I spoke about the results of the Marine Corps audit on the floor 
last August 4, 2015, I underscored the need for reliable transaction 
data. Transactions are the lifeblood of financial statements, and the 
lack of those transaction statements doomed the Marine Corps audit from 
the get-go.
  I ask Secretary Carter to pause and reflect on why the Marine Corps 
audit was unsuccessful. I urge him to explore the questions with Chief 
Financial Officer Mike McCord. He might be surprised at what he hears. 
Maybe Mr. McCord does not understand the problem. If he did, why would 
he continue throwing money at solutions that don't produce what is 
needed most; that is, reliable transaction data. Why doesn't he know 
the same old garbage is still coming out the other end of the sausage 
machine? How is it Comptroller General Dodaro knows it? Why do I see it 
plain as day? It is written all over that Marine Corps audit that 
failed--and a whole bunch of other audits--in big bold print. So why 
can't Mr. McCord see it? He does not seem to have a handle on the core 
problem--the so-called feeder systems. Though ridiculed recently on 
Federal News Radio as being ``museum ready,'' they remain the heart and 
soul--the foundation--of any accounting system.
  In most business operations, transactions are transmitted 
instantaneously from the cash register or other points of origin to 
finance and accounting. At the Pentagon, they take a roundabout route. 
From their points of origin, transactions must first pass through a 
series of gates--literally thousands of feeder and other business 
systems. The trip through the bureaucratic maze is neither smooth nor 
certain. Somewhere along the way, vital linkages are broken. When 
ledgers and account balances are no longer hooked up to transactions, 
forget about auditing the books. It is nothing more than a pipedream.
  In a nutshell, this is the root cause of the problem that still has 
the very mighty Pentagon buffaloed, and it is lying in wait for the 
next go-around. According to Comptroller General Dodaro, Mr. McCord is 
making the wrong choices, wasting billions of dollars on systems that 
don't work. CFO McCord wants us to believe that staying the course 
offers the best chance for success. I disagree. More of the same will 
not cut it. He needs to refocus on doable solutions. Maybe it is time 
for some new ideas, a whole new approach.
  The audit strategy needs to be rebalanced. It is out of whack. The 
roadblocks need to be bypassed. Other agencies seem to be taking care 
of business by pooling accounting resources to save money. So why not 
draw on those skills and capabilities from other government 
agencies that meet the requirements of the law and use them to leverage 
a potential solution--maybe where we know things have worked 
successfully.

  Why not allow a service provider--let's say, at the Department of 
Defense as an example, take any Department--to handle a slice of the 
Defense Department's bookkeeping pie, like civilian pay? Run a test and 
see if it works. If it works, build on it. For the next go-around, tear 
off a bigger chunk, farm it out, and see what happens. Try alternative 
solutions. Keep experimenting until the answer is found. After all 
these decades, nothing seems to be right for this agency, compared to 
all the other agencies of government that

[[Page S4843]]

meet the requirement of the financial records law.
  CFO McCord needs some direction. Secretary Carter needs to challenge 
him to do the impossible. As difficult as it may be in the Pentagon 
bureaucracy, the Secretary needs to encourage him to think outside the 
box. Maybe Comptroller General Dodaro and CFO McCord could put their 
heads together. Maybe if they would team up, they could figure out how 
to simplify the whole system and make it play like a symphony 
orchestra.
  Mr. McCord seems to be having trouble shaking mistaken notions, and 
here is a new one. He thinks the whole Department is poised for a major 
breakthrough; that the looming congressionally mandated September 2017 
deadline is within reach. The Marine Corps audit proves that isn't 
possible. The military services--the Army, Navy, and Air Force--echo 
his assessment. They claim to be ``on track to be ready for audit'' by 
the deadline. I suspect they are about as ready as the Marine Corps 
was. The experts think the other services are in far worse shape than 
the Marine Corps. If true, the probability of earning a departmentwide 
clean opinion is slim to none.
  Now, suddenly, to my amazement, Mr. McCord appears to be backing away 
from his prediction about meeting the deadline. On June 15, he told the 
House Armed Services Committee that the Department is, in his words, 
``many years'' away from a clean opinion. How can the Department be 
audit ready and meet the deadline if it is still years away from a 
clean opinion? His messages are downright confusing and maybe 
contradictory. If he knows DOD is years away from a clean opinion, then 
he must also know it is not audit ready or even close to it. Mr. McCord 
needs to explain his apparent inconsistency.
  Clearly, the impending deadline remains an elusive goal. However, of 
one thing I am certain, the next round is being touted as ``the largest 
audit ever undertaken.'' If Mr. McCord fails to come up with some 
workable solution that gets a firm handle on transactions, there will 
not be enough auditors in the universe to tackle this job. This job is 
just too big for the pick-and-shovel routine, and the cost could be 
astronomical.
  I want Secretary Carter to succeed. I am counting on him to get the 
faltering audit readiness initiative back on track and moving in the 
right direction. The taxpayers deserve nothing less.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). The assistant Democratic leader.


                              Gun Violence

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if a student is failing in school, many 
people will rally around that student and ask: What is missing? Is the 
student working hard enough? Is the teacher connecting with the 
student? But we are concerned.
  Then, when we take a closer look at the situation, sometimes we find 
the student has a problem, a challenge, a learning disability. One of 
those is attention deficit disorder: The student can't focus, can't 
really put his mind on a specific issue and stick with it until the 
task is completed, the mind wanders, the student loses focus, and 
unfortunately the net result is the lack of a positive learning 
experience.
  There are many critics of Congress today and of the Senate for our 
failure to address some of the major issues that are challenging us in 
America. It turns out that when it comes to one issue, the problem in 
the Senate is attention deficit disorder. Let me be specific.
  A few weeks ago, we had the worst mass shooting in the modern history 
of the United States of America. A crazed person went into the Pulse 
nightclub in Orlando, FL, killing 49 people and injuring dozens more. 
It was a shocking experience, and we heard about it early on Sunday 
morning. The entire Nation responded. The President spoke to the issue, 
even going down to Orlando with the Vice President to meet with some of 
the families and some of those who survived this terrible mass 
shooting.
  Then we came back to Washington, and the obvious question was: What 
will the Senate do in response? The Senate had a plan, and the plan 
from the Republican leadership was to have a moment of silence. Well, 
that is entirely appropriate. I am glad we did, and we should, but it 
is not sufficient. It is not enough. So a number of us came to the 
floor--under the leadership of Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, 
Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Senator Booker of New Jersey--
and initiated a filibuster on the floor of the Senate, demanding that 
we at least consider legislation that would reduce the likelihood of 
more mass murders and reduce the likelihood of more violent crimes and 
gun deaths in America.
  The proposal we suggested was straightforward. It said we should 
close the loophole in the background check system. It turns out that if 
you go to a licensed gun dealer in America, you will go through a 
background check through a computer. They will see if there is any 
evidence that you are a convicted felon or have a history of mental 
instability or other prohibitor. If that is the case, you are 
disqualified. You can't buy a firearm. But those who are paying close 
attention know there are alternatives to a licensed gun dealer. If you 
went instead to a gun show--which happens in Illinois and many other 
States on a regular basis--many of them have no background check for 
firearm sales. That is the case in northern Indiana where the laws are 
very flexible and light when it comes to background checks. The bill we 
supported from Senator Murphy, similar to an earlier bill by Senators 
Manchin and Toomey, would have closed the so-called gun show loophole 
so you would have a background check before a firearm is sold, keeping 
the firearm out of the hands of a convicted felon or person who is 
clearly mentally unstable.

  The second proposal we had reflects the times we live in. We now have 
no-fly rules. If you are suspected of being a terrorist or having 
terrorist connections, our government can stop you from boarding an 
airplane. The theory behind it is obvious. We want to keep the 
passengers on the airplane safe, and we would rather run the risk of a 
suspected terrorist being denied a flight than run the risk of a 
suspected terrorist coming onto an airplane and endangering innocent 
lives.
  The proposal Senator Feinstein brought to the floor of the Senate 
said that if you are on the no-fly list or the selectee list, which 
means you go through a special search, or are reasonably suspected of 
terrorist involvement, you would be disqualified from buying a firearm. 
It seems to stand to reason, does it not, that if we are worried about 
a terrorist in our midst hurting innocent people, we certainly don't 
want that terrorist to legally buy an assault weapon in the United 
States of America. That seems obvious.
  These assault weapons, semiautomatic and automatic, are dangers to 
not just a few but to dozens of people. There was a Snapchat that was 
taken by one of the victims in Orlando during the last 9 seconds of her 
life. The shooter at the Orlando nightclub fired off 17 rounds in 9 
seconds. You can see the devastating impact of these weapons when they 
get in the wrong hands. The Feinstein amendment attempted to close that 
loophole.
  Over 90 percent of the American people think the issues I just 
described--closing background check loopholes, closing the gun show 
loophole, keeping guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists--are 
reasonable steps toward gun safety. We have to do more to keep guns out 
of the hands of people who have no business owning them and might 
misuse them.
  In light of that, you would have thought that this proposal would 
have passed, that there wouldn't have been much controversy, 
particularly after the mass murder in Orlando. At the end of 
filibuster, we had votes. Both measures were defeated on the floor of 
the Senate. Then Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, decided 
to try her best to come up with a bipartisan compromise. I salute her. 
She worked long and hard. It wasn't easy, and it certainly wasn't 
popular in some corners of the Senate. She brought her measure to the 
floor--a no-fly, no-buy measure, a variation on the Feinstein 
amendment--and there was an attempt to table it, to stop the amendment 
in its tracks, but Senator Collins managed to get eight Republicans, 
including herself, to vote with the Democrats, and the measure was not 
tabled, but the measure now sits as part of an appropriations bill and 
has not been addressed again.

[[Page S4844]]

  While we have gone through this in the last several weeks, the House 
had a different approach. There was a sit-in that lasted over 24 hours 
to call attention to the need for debate and votes on gun safety. We 
have been told the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, has promised them a 
vote this week. It is unlikely that anything is going to pass in the 
House of Representatives.
  What is next? The American people ask us: Is that it? Are you 
finished with gun safety? You play to a draw on the amendments in the 
Senate, you take up a measure in the House, which has a dim likelihood 
of passing, and that is all you are going do? And then we leave. Next 
week will be the last week in session before September. We will be gone 
for 7 weeks, the longest period of recess in 50 or 60 years in the U.S. 
Senate, while we recess for the conventions and for the August period 
when we spend time with our families. My concern, of course, is one 
that is shared by many. It would be miraculous if we didn't have 
another mass shooting in that 7-week period of time. I hope we do not. 
I pray we do not. History tells us that it is highly likely it will 
happen. Then we will return and have a moment of silence, and then we 
will do nothing.
  You see, it is attention deficit disorder in the Senate when it comes 
to issues involving gun safety, but for many Americans all around this 
country, this is an issue they think about regularly. I can certainly 
tell you that in my home State of Illinois, the city of Chicago I am 
honored to represent, it is an issue that is on the front page of every 
newspaper every day.
  Over the holiday weekend, the Fourth of July holiday weekend, at 
least 66 people were shot in the city of Chicago. At least five of them 
died. The victims of the gun violence include children. A 5-year-old 
girl and her 8-year-old cousin were shot and wounded while playing with 
sparklers on the Fourth of July. An 11-year-old boy was hit in the arm. 
A 15-year-old boy was shot in the chest while he was coming out of a 
store. These shootings took place, despite a surge in police presence 
and thousands of additional officers over the weekend.
  Sadly, it is not rare to see a weekend like this in Chicago marked by 
dozens of shootings. The weekend before this, at least 58 people were 
shot in Chicago, 7 of them fatally; Memorial Day weekend, 69 people 
were shot in Chicago, 7 of them fatally.
  Last week I visited the 11th District police station on the West Side 
of Chicago. The 11th is the Harrison District. It is one of the most 
violent in the city. More than 270 people have been shot in the 
Harrison Police District this year. I met with the commander, Chicago 
Police Deputy Chief James Jones, as well as other officers in the 
district. We had a long talk about the violence and drug sales taking 
place on the streets in that district. We talked about so many 
different challenges--the lack of economic opportunity in that area, 
gang activity. They showed me a map, which looked like a map of Europe 
with all of the different countries--in this case, all of the different 
gangs that controlled a few blocks here or a larger section there.
  We talked about the lack of trust and cooperation between citizens 
and law enforcement. We talked about the overwhelming number of 
children and young adults who have either been the victims of violent 
trauma or who have directly witnessed it. Solving any of these 
challenges is difficult, but we need to do all we can to reduce the 
devastating level of gun violence and to save lives. We can't wait for 
the next mass murder.
  The most immediate problem in the Harrison District in the city of 
Chicago is that it is far too easy for dangerous people to get their 
hands on guns. So many of the shootings that kill and injure people in 
Chicago are preventable. They never would have happened if our laws did 
a better job of keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives division of 
the Federal Government told me last year that they had looked at the 
crime guns that were confiscated in the deadliest sections of Chicago 
and that up to forty percent of those guns were coming from gun shows 
in Northern Indiana where there are no background checks. The 
traffickers and gang leaders literally opened the trunks of their cars 
and filled them with firearms in Northern Indiana and then took a one-
half hour trip back to the city and sold them at night in the 
neighborhood and alleys.
  That is the reality--no background checks. We can close that 
loophole. Will it end gun violence? Of course not. Will it make it more 
difficult for those who have no business to own guns to get them? Yes. 
Why shouldn't we do it?
  We cannot allow this to continue. We need to stand up to the gun 
lobby and their allies in Congress who block commonsense gun reforms 
that are supported by 90 percent of the American people.
  Let's be honest. Reforms like requiring universal background checks 
to keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists are no-brainers. 
The only reason these reforms get tied up and dropped in Congress is 
that the politicians in Washington are afraid to death of the gun 
lobby. The truth is, the gun lobby is not about the Second Amendment. 
The gun lobby is about selling guns. If you reduce their volume of 
sales, you reduce their profits, and they will fight you. Many of the 
colleagues I joined in this Chamber are scared to death of what they 
might do to them in the next election.
  The gun lobby may care about selling guns, but I care more about 
saving lives. I have been fighting their agenda for many years in the 
Senate. I am going to keep at it. I am proud to join my colleagues in 
the House and Senate in saying ``enough'' to this bloodshed in our 
streets.
  Several weeks ago when I joined Senators Murphy, Booker, and 
Blumenthal, we decided to move for votes on commonsense gun reform. Our 
friends in the House of Representatives had a similar effort. I was 
also proud to support the Democratic Members of Congress, Robin Kelly, 
Jan Schakowsky, Danny Davis, Bill Foster, Mike Quigley, and Steny 
Hoyer, who joined with local leaders and community members last 
Thursday in Federal Plaza in Chicago to protest Congress's failure to 
act on gun violence.
  The American Medical Association a few weeks ago declared that gun 
violence is ``a public health crisis.'' It is. Each year more than 
32,000 Americans are killed by guns, and 80,000 are injured. On 
average, 297 Americans are shot every day--every day--and 91 die. The 
daily toll of gun homicides, suicides, assaults, and accidental 
shootings is devastating. Our Nation suffers from mass shootings on a 
daily basis.
  Since 49 people were murdered in Orlando, FL, and 53 injured in the 
worst mass shooting in modern American history, there have been at 
least 47 more mass shootings in America. These are shooting incidents 
where at least four people were hit gun by gunfire. That is a 
staggering total.
  No city has suffered more from the epidemic of gun violence than my 
city of Chicago. So far this year, 2,026 people have been shot in that 
city, and 329 have been murdered. And 7 of the 47 mass shootings that 
have occurred since Orlando have taken place in Chicago. No city in 
America has experienced the number of shootings and gun deaths that we 
have in Chicago. These shootings are the result of a flood of illegal 
guns brought into the city by gun traffickers and straw purchasers. 
They take advantage of clear loopholes in our Federal gun laws, and 
they put guns into the hands of gangbangers and dangerous people. It 
has to stop.
  There are so many victims of gun violence in Chicago it is 
overwhelming. Let me mention a few recent ones. On Father's Day, a 3-
year-old boy named Devon Quinn was sitting in a car seat next to his 
father in the Woodlawn neighborhood when their car was riddled with 
bullets by a drive-by shooter. The gunman tried to target nearby gang 
members. He was a terrible shot. Innocent people were hurt. The boy's 
father dove in front of his son to try to shield him, but a bullet 
struck 3-year-old Devon, who almost died. This 3-year-old is currently 
alive but paralyzed, unable to breathe on his own.
  On June 30, Chanda Foreman was killed on her 37th birthday in a mass 
shooting in the Washington Heights neighborhood that also injured 4 
other people. She was described by her family as a great person and 
responsible worker. She had a 6-year-old daughter

[[Page S4845]]

who will now grow up without a mother. She was sitting in her car when 
apparently two rival gangs started shooting at one another, and she was 
killed in the crossfire.
  On July 2, a father named Dionus Neely, his 10-year-old daughter, 
Elle, and his 3-year-old daughter Endia were shot and killed in their 
home in Hazel Crest. Investigators said this appeared to be a targeted 
attack. They described it as pure evil. Erin Neely, the wife of Dionus 
and mother of Elle and Endia, said:

       Endia was the light of this world, always smiling and 
     hugging and laughing. And Elle was a dancer. She was the life 
     of the party. And my husband, he was a stay-at-home dad. He 
     was a good father.

  She said:

       They did not deserve this.

  I am going to keep these shooting victims and families in my thoughts 
and prayers, but thoughts and prayers and moments of silence are not 
enough. Lawmakers have a responsibility to do everything in their power 
to protect innocent Americans from being shot and killed in their 
homes, their cars, and in their neighborhoods. We can't allow this to 
continue.
  I am going to join my allies in Congress to try to stop it with real 
gun reform. I am going to focus my attention on the problem that will 
not go away. My colleagues who think if they just wait long enough we 
will forget this issue are just plain wrong. I am not going to quit. We 
need the American people to stand with us. If they will help us in 
speaking out for commonsense reform, we can finally beat the gun lobby 
and stop putting guns in the hands of people who have no business 
owning them and save lives across America.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished senior Senator 
from Illinois for what he said. As he knows, like many Vermonters, I 
consider myself a responsible gun owner, but I don't think it is 
responsible when people are allowed to come in and buy guns with no 
background checks, get whatever they want, and then make a profit 
selling them to gangs. I don't know how anybody, any lobby or any 
Member of Congress, can say they can support that. I thank the Senator 
from Illinois for what he said. He is absolutely right.
  Mr. President, it has been just 2 weeks since negotiators released 
what can only be called a farce of a proposal to require the labeling 
of genetically engineered foods. Less than a week after it was 
released--without any committee action, any testimony, no recorded 
feedback from either proponents or opponents--the Senate majority 
leader filed cloture on a privileged vehicle to fast-track this bill.
  Gone are the promises of regular order. Gone are the pledges of an 
open amendment process. Instead, the Senate will now consider whether 
to preempt carefully considered, long-debated State laws that protect 
and enforce a consumer's right to know.
  Make no mistake: Vermont's first-in-the-Nation GE labeling law is 
what is under attack here. Vermont's carefully debated law is the 
threat that has driven millions of dollars in lobbying to the doors of 
the U.S. Senate. And the millions of dollars from lobbyists seem to 
have paid off because suddenly, even with all of the unsolved problems 
facing America--we don't have our appropriations bills done, we don't 
have money for Zika, and we can't do anything about the sale of high-
powered weapons to gangs who then use them to shoot innocent people--
lobbyists can come in and say: Change all the rules. Ignore all of the 
precedence. Forget the pledges you have made. Let's just zip through 
this bill and get it done because we want it.
  No wonder this Congress is disfavored by the American people. This 
bill does not consider that 9 out of 10 consumers support a mandatory 
GE label on their food products. What this bill does not recognize is 
that 64 countries around the world mandate GE labeling. This bill does 
not benefit from a thorough, open, constructive debate, but it has 
apparently benefited from millions of lobbying dollars and campaign 
contributions. Consumers want a simple, easy to read label. Instead, 
this concoction of a so-called deal would offer them a complicated 
scavenger hunt.
  I was here in March when the Senate voted, convincingly, to reject 
the DARK Act. Well, what do we have today? We have a rebooted DARK Act 
that makes modest improvements, but falls far short of the disclosure 
that consumers demand and Vermonters have required. It does not have 
the disclosure that 9 out of 10 consumers say they want. We are 
listening to a handful of very well-financed lobbyists and campaign 
contributors, but we will not listen to 9 out of 10 of the American 
people. Once again, their objective is not to honor and empower 
consumers' right to know, but to derail State laws that do and to get 
by with as little consumer transparency as possible.
  In this shortened period of debate, I hope to create for the Record 
what the Agriculture Committee has not: the shortcomings of this 
proposal, and the ways in which it should--and could--be improved.
  I will first discuss the uncertainty the definition in this bill 
creates. We have heard repeatedly these past 2 weeks both worry and 
apprehension that the legislation before the Senate would actually 
exclude virtually all the GE products that are now on the market. This 
concern stems from the very narrow scope of the definition in this 
bill. This definition excludes any foods that do not actually contain 
the genetic material of a GE crop. So what does this mean in practice? 
This definition would exclude a wide variety of highly processed foods, 
from soybean oil to corn oil, corn syrup to sugar beets, and an array 
of other products that do not possess the actual genetic material after 
they have been processed.
  Now, the sponsors of this bill tell us, no, no, no--we have it all 
wrong. They say that our analysis and interpretation of the legislation 
is incorrect. They say to trust them. They say this bill gives USDA 
broad authority to label GE products. They point to a letter from USDA 
last week--and remind us that USDA would be the only agency with 
authority to implement and enforce the GE labeling rules. In that 
letter, USDA said that the bill as currently drafted would include all 
traditional gene modification products which have come through the USDA 
approval process, such as GE corn, soybeans, sugar, and canola products 
on the market today, as well as products developed using gene editing 
techniques.
  So, yes, on the surface, this bill appears to give USDA broad 
authority to develop a label for GE products. However, with the swift 
speed with which the proponents of this bill have moved, with no 
committee process, no debate or amendment process, we will not be able 
to ensure the language in this bill does exactly what they say that it 
does. Just take their word for it. The language and definition for a 
bioengineered food for this new label--and let me quote directly from 
the bill here--is a food that ``contains genetic materials that has 
been modified through in vitro recombinant DNA techniques.'' Well, let 
me interpret that for Vermonters and consumers across the country. That 
means that, if the food does not have genetic material in it, then it 
is not considered bioengineered under this bill. So even with the 
assurances from USDA last week, a simple study of this definition says 
that those foods that are highly processed and no longer have the 
modified genetic materials would not fall under this new label.
  The definition also goes on to say that a bioengineered food is one 
that--and, again, let me quote directly from the bill--``for which the 
modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional 
breeding or found in nature.'' This raises more red flags because many 
of the genes that have been modified or introduced do occur in nature, 
just not in the particular crop the gene has been added to. They might 
occur naturally--in frogs, say--but not in our crops.
  We have heard countless questions asking: Well, would it apply to 
this crop, or is it their intention that this other variety would have 
to be labeled if the gene being introduced occurs in nature? USDA says 
yes today, but will it say yes tomorrow? If you look at this bill, 
there is no clear-cut answer. We have seen with the Vermont labeling 
law, where the Grocery Manufacturer's Association took the State of 
Vermont to court to challenge its

[[Page S4846]]

label, claiming it infringed on the association's freedom of speech, 
that such details matter. We know that the details of this bill are 
very important if we are going to ensure that it will hold up through 
the complicated regulatory process and in court, where surely a farm 
group or food manufacturer will challenge this law.
  If the sponsors of this bill would allow us to improve this 
definition and clarify what is covered, there would be a lot less 
concern and heartburn, and it could help to shed light on the true 
congressional intent of this proposal. That is why I have filed an 
amendment to strengthen the definition in this bill and to bring it 
more in line with what we have seen in other countries, where many of 
these same food manufacturers are labeling already for their export 
markets.
  Moving on to genetically engineered fish, another point the sponsors 
of this bill have tried to refute is how this bill treats genetically 
engineered salmon, potentially exempting such salmon from labeling. 
Again, the sponsors say we have it all wrong--that this bill would 
require the labeling of GE salmon and will not affect the FDA's 
authority to require a label under the agency's existing authority.
  However, at issue is that this bill preempts more than just Vermont's 
Act 120 on GE labeling. It also blocks laws like Vermont's seed 
labeling law and Alaska's fish labeling law, which requires that any GE 
fish in the State of Alaska bear a simple label to let consumers know. 
The salmon industry is vitally important to Alaska, and that is why the 
Alaskan Legislature passed their fish labeling law a decade ago.
  And what do we hear again from the bill's sponsors? I will tell you: 
They say don't worry. The FDA could still require GE labels for salmon. 
But we all know how the FDA has dragged its heels already in responding 
to concerns from Congress on the labeling of genetically engineered 
fish. Just last year, the omnibus appropriations bill directed the FDA 
to provide guidelines for the labeling of a fish as genetically 
engineered before the approval of a new genetically engineered salmon.
  By preempting Alaska's law, the Senate will tell the people of that 
great State that folks here in Washington know best. Even though you 
have a State law in place today to require this label, a law you have 
had on the books for a decade, Congress is going to preempt your State 
law and give USDA another 2 or 3 years before completing their labeling 
regulations. In the meantime, not your State--or any State--may have a 
law in place to ensure this label. That is not fair to the seafood 
industry in Alaska or to consumers who are looking for this 
information. That is why I have offered an amendment to grandfather in 
those State laws that were enacted before January 1, 2016. We took this 
same step in the recent Toxic Substances Control Act reform bill. 
States that had already enacted strong chemical safety laws were able 
to continue implementing them. We should be able to do the same with 
this labeling law today. Doing so would ensure there would be no 
``patchwork'' we have been warned about and would let existing laws to 
stay on the books.
  On another matter, the sponsors of this proposal took careful steps 
to ensure that there are no teeth in this bill for any enforcement by 
the USDA. They specifically spell out in the bill that there is no 
authority for the USDA to recall products found to be improperly 
labeled under the requirements in the bill for GE foods. This bill is 
also void of any fines or punishments for violators, and there is no 
compliance deadline for companies. How, with a straight face, can we 
call this a mandatory label?
  The sponsors tell us again: Don't worry--there is enough ``strong 
enforcement authority through several mechanisms in the bill.'' First, 
they assert that, since USDA has been given the authority to audit any 
company that mislabels a food product or does not otherwise comply with 
the GMO disclosure requirements, it will allow them to ``hold them 
publicly accountable.'' They point out that State and Federal consumer 
protection laws are preserved in this bill and that the FDA retains its 
existing authority to regulate ``truthful and misleading'' claims on 
the labels.
  Now, that is a confusing point since the proponents of this bill have 
just told us that USDA was the only agency with authority to implement 
and enforce the GE labeling rules. So how is it that the FDA can still 
regulate ``truthful and misleading'' claims? Are we to then believe 
that the FDA will use its authority to enforce these labels that 
actually comply with a USDA requirement? Perhaps if we could clarify 
that issue in this bill, it would help to set the record straight when 
it comes to congressional intent and the Federal Food, Drug, and 
Cosmetic Act. But, again, no. We will be blocked from offering any 
amendments to this bill to clear up this confusion and to ensure that 
the FDA can use their residual authority in the Federal Food, Drug, and 
Cosmetic Act's section 403, which covers truthful and misleading 
labels.
  To go from a State law that has some teeth and enforcement 
capability, as we have in Vermont, to a Federal standard with no 
penalties, recall opportunity, or other ways to enforce this new 
labeling requirement is alarming. The proponents point out that states 
have the ability to enact an identical State GMO labeling law and can 
provide additional enforcement authority if desired.
  So first they want to take away strong meaningful State laws on 
labeling. Then they tell those States they can pass something identical 
to the Federal law, as weak as you may think it is, and enforce it on 
behalf of USDA. All this because Congress appears too busy bending to 
the whims and interests of powerful interests to include any meaningful 
enforcement mechanisms in this bill.
  The sponsors of this bill also tell us that they feel that ``public 
sentiment'' will be enough to get these companies to comply and just do 
the right thing. Will our consumers have to be the cops on the beat to 
go after these companies? When these families are already having a 
tough enough time trying to squeeze every minute out of their days, now 
they will police these multimillion dollar companies to make sure they 
comply? That is highly unlikely, and it is patently unfair.
  Of course, then there is the matter of international labeling laws. 
Although some groups and Members of the Senate try to make it appear 
that what Vermont has done is completely novel, the fact is that 
labeling laws for GE crops exist in 64 other countries today. 
Certainly, they are not all identical, but I will tell you one thing: 
The definition for bioengineered food used in this bill is unlike any 
other in the rest of the world.
  On this point, we hear from the proponents of this bill that, among 
the 64 countries who require labeling of GMO foods, there is no 
consistently used definition of biotechnology or consistent way that 
this is applied to foods. In fact, they highlight that some of our 
major trading partners exclude some of the very products that they 
believe this bill provides authority to USDA to label.
  The fact is that consumers want the right to know for many varied 
reasons. For some, the question is a religious point. For others, they 
want to know the extent to which GE crops may increase herbicide use, 
not just the presence of the genetic materials in the food. That is why 
I have filed an amendment to strengthen the definition for the foods 
that must be labeled under this bill. My amendment is based on the 
United Nations' Codex, an intergovernmental body with more than 180 
members, established by the framework of the Joint Food Standards 
Programme established by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the 
United Nations and the World Health Organization. A broader definition, 
as I have proposed, will also allow for this new label and USDA to keep 
up with modern science and the rapidly changing pace of gene 
modifications we are seeing developed and our researchers working on 
today.
  This bill should not be so narrowly drafted that it ties USDA's hands 
and ignores the fact that there are dramatic advancements in 
biotechnology every day. Ten years ago, it would have been hard to have 
predicted the scientific innovations in today's world, and who knows 
what developments we will see in the next 10 years. This bill should be 
drafted so that we ensure that USDA has sufficient authority to make 
these determinations in the future, without Congress needing to update 
this authorization every time

[[Page S4847]]

there is a new scientific advancement in biotechnology.
  And then there is the so-called patchwork. I have heard from the 
proponents of this bill that their efforts are to prevent a patchwork 
of different State labeling laws. They claim that the existing State 
laws will cause confusion for consumers and food companies. But what 
they fail to explain is that we do not have a patchwork of State laws 
today. What every Member of the Senate should know is that Vermont is 
the only State that has a broad labeling law in place and in effect 
today. Maine and Connecticut's laws have yet to take effect due to 
trigger clauses in those laws. Even if they were to take effect, these 
three States have worked in tandem and all require that the same 
language--``Produced with Genetic Engineering''--appear on the package.
  In Vermont, our attorney general was given the authority to make 
amendments and changes to the State's labeling standard to ensure it is 
in line with other state standards to prevent consumer or industry 
confusion. So we do not have this fictional ``patchwork'' that some 
have claimed and used as reason to act immediately, without thorough 
debate and without opportunity for improvement. That is why I have 
filed another amendment to grandfather existing State laws for 
labeling, whether it be for seeds, GE salmon and Frankenfish, or GE 
foods.
  Given the mounting unanswered questions and legal ambiguity that 
surrounds this bill, I cannot fathom why the Senate is intent to fast-
track it. Rather than going through any sort of orderly committee 
process, with hearings and markup, its sponsors have sought to use 
procedural tactics to avert a lengthy, controversial debate. It is in 
part why there was commotion and confusion last week when the Senate 
held a rare rollcall vote on the motion to lay before the Senate a 
message from the House to accompany a bill. The Senate Library and the 
Congressional Research Service had to hunt back to an example from 1976 
that is cited in Riddick's Senate Procedure for when the Senate had to 
have such a vote.
  This is a complex issue, one that the Senate should consider 
deliberately, with a full and open debate of reasonable, germane, and 
relevant amendments. Only that process would ensure that we truly have 
a mandatory Federal label that does encompass the GE foods in the 
marketplace today and future advancements in biotechnology.
  Again, I am discouraged that Senators--Senators like me who have the 
benefit of their States creating a long record to support effective, 
mandatory GE labeling--have been cut out of the process in crafting 
this proposal. That is why I have nonetheless joined other Senators, 
including Senators Merkley, Sanders, Tester, Blumenthal, Franken, and 
Murkowski, in filing amendments for consideration. I would like to take 
a moment to explain to the Senate--and for the Record--just how modest 
and reasonable some of these amendments are. I have already mentioned a 
few.
  First, I have filed a series of amendments to address serious flaws 
in this proposal's use of electronic or digital codes. I am a proud 
supporter of Senator Merkley's legislation, long-pending in the Senate, 
to require a mandatory, on-package label of some kind to identify 
genetically engineered food for consumers. This proposal includes among 
its options digital codes--or QR codes, for those versed in the lingo. 
They are black and white boxes. The idea is a consumer takes their 
smartphone, scans the code; the Internet takes them to a page, where 
they can then scroll to find the information they seek. I don't know if 
many of you in this Chamber have been to Vermont. If you haven't, you 
should. It is beautiful, especially this time of the year. It is also 
rural. We still face internet challenges. More than that, consumers 
should not be forced to scan the codes of 30 items in their shopping 
basket, simply to learn if they include GE ingredients. What was once a 
quick trip to the market for milk and bread will turn into a 2-hour 
ordeal--and that is if you can access the Internet in the store. I have 
filed an amendment to strike the use of these so-called QR codes as a 
means of labeling.
  While this bill requires the Department of Agriculture to study the 
potential challenges to consumer access, it does nothing to assess 
consumer awareness. One of my amendments would expand this study. 
Another amendment would require that if such a study determines that 
consumers will not have sufficient access to information via electronic 
or other digital codes, the Secretary of Agriculture will require only 
on-package disclosure. Another amendment I have filed would simply 
require the language accompanying an electronic or digital code to say 
``GE information,'' instead of simply ``food information.'' What harm 
would there be in giving consumers more descriptive and direct 
information?
  Another amendment that I have filed would strike this proposal's 
effort to preempt Vermont's longstanding seed law. On the books since 
2004 and supported by organic farmers and hobby gardeners alike, there 
is no need for this bill to go so far as to preempt this longstanding 
law that gives farmers more information about what they are buying.
  Like others, I have filed an amendment to strengthen the definition 
of bioengineering and to strengthen consumer privacy with in the bill's 
requirements. I have an amendment to match the amount of GE food 
required to trigger a label to the 0.9 percent required in Vermont's 
Act 120 and other international labeling standards.
  And, importantly, I have filed an amendment to grandfather in 
Vermont's Act 120 and any other similar labeling laws enacted before 
January 1, 2016. The bill before us throws away the work of the Vermont 
Legislature. Rather than treat the Vermont law--the first-in-the-Nation 
GE labeling law--as the gold standard and the floor for any national 
law, instead of using Vermont's law as an instructive starting point 
for a national label, we throw away the work of our legislature, the 
voices of my constituents. Well, Vermonters will not be silenced on 
this matter. I am here to give voice to their views, even as the Senate 
muffles the progress our State has made in advancing a consumer's right 
to know.
  Speaking of which, I have heard from hundreds of Vermonters about 
this so-called mandatory labeling bill. For the benefit of the Senate's 
short record on this issue, I will take this opportunity to share with 
the Chamber some of the messages that I have received over the past few 
weeks.
  This is a map of our State, and the dots show where I have heard from 
my constituents. Many have shared their concerns about digital or 
electronic disclosure options. I could read thousands of these letters, 
but I will just read from a couple of them.
  John from Fairlee, VT, wrote: ``I am incensed over the Senate 
proposal to allow companies to put a bar code style label on packaging 
that could be read by using a smart phone to determine GMO content. 
First, I don't even have a smart phone and have no plans to buy one 
since we have no cell reception where I live. Even if stores have Wi-
Fi, and I were willing to buy a smart phone, why should I have to go 
the extra step of connecting to a company's website to determine if its 
product contains GMOs?''
  Well, John from Fairlee makes a lot of sense. For example, suppose 
you have a peanut allergy. Packages today will say if the food has 
peanuts in it or not. Suppose you have a gluten allergy. You can go 
into a store and the store will have whole aisles of gluten-free 
products, which would also be labeled that way. Why shouldn't you be 
able to just look at a simple label and see whether the ingredients 
were produced with genetic engineering? Campbell's Soup is going to do 
it. Why can't we just have a label?
  Katharine from Brattleboro, VT, wrote: ``I'm one of the many people 
who cannot afford a cell phone. The federal proposal for GMO labels 
that requires a cell phone would be useless to me and many others on 
fixed incomes, disability, etc. Please pass a federal law that doesn't 
require a cell phone to access information. I deserve to know what I am 
consuming as much as people with extra money who can afford a cell. It 
just isn't fair to the rest of us to keep us in the dark. I pay my 
bills and live frugally and responsibly. I do not use my money for 
entertainment or extras. But I do not deserve to be restricted from 
access to important information.''

[[Page S4848]]

  She went on to say: ``Additionally, cell coverage in Vermont is, at 
best, poor. So even people with cell phones might not be able to access 
information.''
  Well, this Senator agrees with her.
  Maureen said: ``I do not have a smart phone, as is true for most 
older Americans, and should not have to buy one in order to find out if 
the food I buy is genetically modified. This is a dishonest attempt to 
pander to big industry at the citizens' expense.''
  Others, like Carl from Putney and Barbara from Hinesburg, said: ``I 
don't use a smart phone, and a label I have to scan will do me no good. 
I doubt I would want to scan everything I looked at in my supermarket, 
in any case.
  ``The proposed `labeling law' is in fact not a labeling law at all. 
As I understand it, the food producers would not need to disclose 
anything, just provide a phone number or website that consumers could 
use to find out whether the food is genetically modified.''
  Carl and Barbara went on to say: 
`` . . . to have a label that can be read only with a phone app is 
ridiculous. We personally do not have such a phone and will not obtain 
one because where we live reception is challenging.''
  Hundreds of Vermonters even joined together in sending me a letter 
that said: ``The bill requires the labeling of packaged foods 
containing GMOs in one of three ways: an electronic code that consumers 
can scan; USDA-developed symbol; or a label. The bill leaves it to 
manufacturers to decide which of the three methods they prefer.
  ``Now guess which method Big Food will choose? I have no doubt that 
they will choose the electronic code that can only be read with a 
scanner. They know that few will want to do this and even fewer will be 
able to.''
  The letter continued: ``A recent national survey showed that only 16 
percent of consumers have ever scanned a QR code for any purpose. 
Unless I want to take each item to the customer service desk in the 
grocery store, I must download a scanning app onto my smartphone--
assuming I even own one! No matter which app I choose, it may take a 
few tries to actually scan the code properly. Then I will have to wait 
for the website to pop up on the screen, which could take a long time 
depending on your network coverage inside the store, after which I 
might have to sift through the company's information to find the GMO 
information I am looking for.
  ``The QR code is hardly a label in any meaningful sense of the word. 
It adds a barrier between the consumer and the information he or she 
wants, and discriminates against those who do not own smartphones--
which is half of people living in rural areas, 75 percent of those over 
65, and half of those making less than $30,000 a year. This legislation 
discriminates against all these people and especially the poorest 
Americans.''
  Well, it is clear that the proposal before us today is driven more by 
the perspectives of powerful special interests than by a commitment to 
honor a consumer's right to know or by a legitimate effort to make 
information available to all Americans. Consumers are far from this 
deal's highest priority. If they were, we would not be contemplating an 
electronic or digital disclosure method when many rural areas, 
including most of Vermont, face significant technological challenges, 
not to mention that this digital disclosure would also discriminate 
against low-income and elderly populations.
  I have also heard from a number of Vermont organizations, all with 
grievous concerns about the proposal before us today.
  The Vermont Public Interest Research Group wrote: ``VPIRG opposes the 
. . . proposal because it is a thinly veiled attempt to keep consumers 
in the dark about what is in their food. This proposal is nothing but a 
sham aimed at eliminating Vermont's labeling law without replacing it 
with any meaningful federal standard.
  ``Vermont's labeling law took effect on July 1, and companies are 
already providing consumers with clear on-package labeling that allows 
them to make informed decisions about the food they are purchasing.''
  They went on to say: ``Vermont's law is not novel or unique. Over 90% 
of Americans support labeling genetically engineered foods, and these 
products are already labeled in more than 64 countries around the 
world.''
  Others, like Rural Vermont, said: ``On behalf of the members of the 
Board of Directors of Rural Vermont, who are all working farmers, and 
our statewide membership of other farmers and their customers, I am 
writing to urge you to do everything you can to prevent passage of this 
bill that proposes to provide a national standard for the labeling of 
food that is genetically engineered. This bill does not meet the 
fundamental needs of the over 90% of Americans who want genetically 
engineered food products to be labeled.
  ``This bill is no better than its predecessors in the Senate or the 
bill passed by the House in 2015. The fact that the bill offers as a 
`label' the option for food producers to require customers to use so-
called QR codes to access information about the content of the product 
they are considering purchasing is absurd and blatantly discriminatory. 
The use of a QR code as a `label' requires that the customer A) Own a 
'smart' cell phone, B) Have the application required to read the QR 
code installed on that phone, C) have adequate access to cellular 
service inside their grocery store (highly problematic, esp. in 
Vermont), and D) Have the time and patience to navigate the web site to 
which the QR code will direct them in order to find the information 
regarding the product they are holding in their hand--the content and 
transparency of which is still entirely determined by the food 
producer. Try suggesting this scenario to a busy mom with a couple of 
kids in tow and you are likely to be laughed, if not chased, out of the 
room.''
  The Northeastern Organic Farming Association of Vermont wrote: 
``Vermont's GE food labeling law Act 120, which is in effect as of July 
1, provides a more meaningful, enforceable, and consumer-friendly 
labeling framework than the current federal proposal. It should be 
allowed to stand.''
  I heard directly from Ben & Jerry's, which wrote: ``We are incredibly 
proud of the ingredients we use and we couldn't be happier to tell our 
fans and consumer about them. That's why we find it so hard to believe 
that there are food companies that do not want to disclose the 
ingredients they use. That they are fighting so hard to oppose what 
polls show 90% of American's want, the ability to look at a food 
package and know whether or not the product contains GMO ingredients.''
  And others have reached out as well, saying this from the League of 
Conservation Voters: ``Under the proposal, companies may disclose GMO 
content through a QR code, a digital code which requires a smart phone 
or other scanning device to decipher. Those who do not have access to a 
smart phone--more than 50% of rural and low income populations, and 
more than 65% of the elderly--will have to rely upon scanners provided 
by another party to access information about GMO content.''
  Other Vermonters have reached out to me to share their concerns about 
the right of States to legislate in a way that furthers the legitimate 
and significant interests of the State. They have reached out, urging 
me to reject this ``deal'' or any other bill that would prohibit states 
from requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods unless it 
is replaced by a strong mandatory national label.
  Jennifer from Bethel, VT, said: ``I and many other Vermonters urge 
you to reject this bill, we want Vermont's precedent-setting, mandatory 
labeling bill to go into effect, and for it not to be thwarted by 
efforts for a weaker, overriding federal program of voluntary, or QR-
code based labeling, which would only let some consumers know what's in 
their food some of the time.''
  James wrote: ``We have worked too long and hard to have our efforts 
scrapped by politicians who know little or nothing about growing 
natural nutritional food.''
  He continued to explain that he and his wife testified before the 
Vermont State Legislature in support of Act 120, Vermont's GE labeling 
law.
  Another Vermonter said that this bill, which would nullify 
Vermonters' right to know what is in their food and legally bar any 
other State from enacting such a law, is ``an outrage.'' Many others 
also reached out to express their concerns that this ``deal'' is really 
just an attempt to undermine Vermont's law.
  The overwhelming message that I have heard loud and clear from so

[[Page S4849]]

many Vermonters is that they simply want to know what is in the food 
that they feed their families.
  Leslie from Middlebury, VT, wrote: ``The people of Vermont have made 
their voices known. We want to know what is in the food we eat and feed 
our families.''
  Eric from Strafford, VT, said: ``I strongly urge you to fight to 
defeat the GMO labeling agreement proposed by Senators Stabenow and 
Roberts. It would undermine the Vermont labeling law and fails to offer 
consumers the clarity they deserve about what's in their food.''
  And others have reached out as well, saying: ``I am very disappointed 
that legislators in Washington are more interested in protecting the 
food industries than they are in providing information to the consumer. 
We consumers have a right to know what's in our food, how it was 
produced, and its origins.''
  And: ``We have the right to know what is in our food in order to make 
informed choices about what we eat and feed our families.''
  ``People need to have the right to know the contents of their food, 
it is ludicrous to deny this information to the people of this 
nation.''
  ``Consumers have a right to know what is in their food. And providing 
consumers that information shouldn't be left up to the manufacturer.''
  ``As a concerned consumer, I want the choices I make for my family to 
be completely informed.''
  As well as: ``Like most Americans, I simply want to know what's in my 
food and how it was produced. That is why I support GMO labeling.''
  From the many letters that I have received from Vermonters since this 
``deal'' was announced, there is one in particular that I would like to 
share in full.
  Michael of Brookfield, VT, writes: ``Dear Senator Leahy, I have 
recently learned that Senators Roberts and Stabenow have proposed GMO 
labeling legislation. The proposed measure has numerous defects, and I 
urge you strongly to oppose it.
  ``The bill allows the agency to set the thresholds so high as to 
render the labeling requirement practically toothless. It also contains 
a loophole that could exempt corn and soy, the two most widely grown 
GMO crops in the country. Further, the actual required labeling would 
not require any actual information about the food to be put on the 
label, but instead can direct consumers to a website that has the 
required information. This would require both a smart phone and in-
store internet connectivity in order to make a point-of-sale purchasing 
decision, neither of which are universal, especially here in Vermont. 
It seems that the authors of the bill are trying to make it as hard as 
possible to learn about what's in our food.
  ``I can understand the desire to prevent numerous conflicting GMO 
labeling laws from being enacted at the state level, but this ill-
conceived substitute should be rejected.
  ``Sincerely, Michael''
  I would hope Members of this body will heed Michael's advice. I am 
sure constituents in your own States feel the same way.
  The legislation before us today undermines the public's right to know 
and preempts labeling requirements for genetically engineered 
ingredients in States. While it is true that the proposal makes modest 
improvements to the legislation that the Senate wisely rejected in 
March, the fact remains that this was hastily crafted solely in an 
effort to undermine Vermont's GE labeling law that just took effect 
last Friday. And so I would like to recap some of these concerns.
  I remain concerned that this legislation takes away the rights of 
Vermont--or actually any other State--to legislate in a way that 
advances public health and food safety, informs consumers about 
potential environmental threats, avoids consumer confusion, and 
protects religious tradition. Not only would this legislation preempt 
Vermont's Act 120 GE disclosure requirement, but it would block other 
State laws like Alaska's requirement to label all products containing 
genetically engineered fish and shell fish, and Vermont and Virginia's 
laws requiring the labeling of genetically engineered seed or 
transgenetic seed.
  I remain concerned that the bill's definition of ``bioengineered 
foods'' has been written so narrowly that it allows some of the most 
common foods to go unlabeled. Whether this bill was drafted with the 
intent to exempt certain foods remains unclear. What is clear, is that 
the definition has created significant confusion, not just among 
consumers, but also in this very Chamber and across Federal agencies. 
That is why we should be having a full debate and amendment process to 
allow for technical corrections and to ensure clarity.
  I remain concerned that this bill allows for the use of electronic 
disclosure methods. In many rural parts of the country--including rural 
parts of the distinguished Presiding Officer's State, the rural parts 
of the distinguished Senator from Oregon's State, who is on the floor, 
and the many rural parts of Vermont--we have significant technological 
challenges that make it nearly impossible for consumers to access the 
electronic or digital disclosure methods allowed in this bill. I do 
believe that by requiring the Secretary of Agriculture to complete a 
study on this issue, these difficulties unavoidably will be recognized. 
However, significant questions remain. If the Secretary finds, as I am 
sure will be the case, that additional disclosure options are required 
for rural areas, will the USDA be responsible for installing scanners 
in grocery stores? Or are the proponents of this proposal going to put 
the burden on our retail establishments, large and small, to install 
costly digital scanners? A scannable code or a 1-800 number is not true 
disclosure. It is a burden on consumers. It creates an obstacle course 
from consumers. It is the exact opposite of what we mean when we say, 
``Just Label It.''
  I remain concerned that this proposal doesn't truly support a 
consumer's right to know. Consumers were an afterthought in the 
crafting of this ``deal.'' We should stay true to the kinds of things 
most of us say in our campaigns and our political advertising. We say: 
We are there for you. We are there to protect you. We are there for 
you.
  Well, that is not true. You, the consumer, were an afterthought of 
the crafting of this deal. The prime motivation was to allow large 
corporations to get by with doing as little as possible, and the bill's 
lack of transparency is counterproductive. The more information that we 
seek to hide from consumers about how their food is grown and 
manufactured, the more unnecessary red flags we raise for them. Our 
farmers and food producers should be proud to inform consumers about 
what they plant, how they grow it, the choices they make, and why.
  I also remain concerned that this proposal--even if you like the 
proposal--has no enforcement mechanism. I have trouble believing that 
public pressure will be enough to force these multimillion-dollar 
corporations to comply. You would think that 9 out of 10 consumers 
would be enough public pressure for Congress to respond, but it didn't 
do a single thing for this legislation. Consumers are not going to be 
able to make these multimillion-dollar corporations comply. This 
proposal makes consumers the cops on the beat, policing companies to 
provide information about the contents of their product.
  These corporations show that they don't really care what the 
consumers think, with some notable exceptions. Campbell's Soup, which 
is a multibillion-dollar corporation, has voluntarily decided to label 
their products, and I applaud them for doing that. So many others are 
not going to do so. Surely our Nation's families, who are busy 
squeezing every minute, out of every day, will not have time to hold 
companies accountable in the court of public opinion. We should not 
place this added burden on consumers who only want to know what they 
are feeding their families.
  Since this proposal was unveiled, I have heard from many Vermonters 
who care deeply about this issue. Just last Friday, I joined several 
hundred Vermonters on the statehouse lawn in my hometown of Montpelier 
to celebrate Vermont's Act 120 law taking effect on that day, July 1. I 
heard their voices loud and clear on this issue. The proposed ``deal'' 
before us falls short. It doesn't offer consumers what they need or 
what Vermont's legislators had in mind when they passed Vermont's Act

[[Page S4850]]

120, which is to have a simple and clearly written, on-package label. 
All we want is a simple on-package label so that, when we look at it, 
we know what we have.
  Dozens of Vermonters have told me that they do not own smart phones 
or do not get cell phone service in their towns. Katharine, from 
Brattleboro, VT, wrote to me and said: ``I'm one of the people who 
cannot afford a cell phone. . . . Please pass a federal law that 
doesn't require a cell phone to access information. I deserve to know 
what I'm consuming, just as much as people with extra money who can 
afford a cell phone. It just isn't fair to the rest of us to keep us in 
the dark.''
  Katharine's sentiments were echoed by Maureen, from Fairlee, VT, who 
said: ``I do not have a smart phone, as is true for most older 
Americans, and I should not have to buy one in order to find out if the 
food I buy is genetically modified.''
  Carl from Putney, VT also wrote to me, saying: ``I don't use a smart 
phone, and a label I have to scan will do me no good. I doubt I would 
want to scan everything I looked at in the supermarket, in any case.''
  And you know Katherine and Maureen and Carl and the hundreds of other 
Vermonters who I have heard from are right. It is not fair, and it is 
exactly what these large corporations want: They want to hide 
information behind a QR code or a 1-800 number.
  Americans want to make informed decisions for their families and with 
their limited grocery budgets. One Vermonter, Denis, said it well in 
his message to me: ``The issue is simple: consumers deserve to know 
what they are consuming, including whether or not the ingredients are 
produced naturally or through genetic engineering, so they can make 
personal choices about what to purchase. GMO information needs to be 
clearly disclosed on the label as part of the nutrition and ingredient 
details.''
  Lewis from Enosburg Falls also wrote to me about the importance of a 
consumer's right to know. He said: ``Everyone has the right to know 
what they are eating. Period. Vermont's labeling law will not judge 
GMOs as good or bad, it will simply confirm their presence in any 
product. I want to make informed decisions about what is in the food my 
family and I eat, whether it's salt, sugar, fat, or GMOs.''
  What Vermont did, unlike the U.S. Senate, which had no hearings or 
open discussions--the Republican leader brought this bill out here 
under a fast-track so we couldn't have any real debate on it--was 
debate this issue for years. They held over 50 hearings on the subject. 
They had over 130 witnesses testify and all sides of the issue were 
heard. Yet the U.S. Senate has failed to hold a single hearing to 
debate these issues and hear expert testimony.
  The little State of Vermont had over 50 hearings and more than 130 
witnesses. Our legislature represents 625,000 people. We had over 50 
hearings and heard from more than 130 witnesses, while this Congress, 
which represents 325 million people, didn't have time for a single 
hearing on GE labeling. This Congress didn't have time to debate these 
issues and hear expert testimony. The U.S. Senate did not have one 
single hearing so that any of those 325 million Americans could be 
heard.
  If you saw this in a movie or something where they were poking 
satirical fun at the Congress, you would say: Oh, they have gone too 
far; that would never happen. Unfortunately, it has happened.
  This backroom deal made by the food industry has left too many gaping 
holes and questions that should have been addressed before this bill 
was fast-tracked through the Senate.
  Is the Vermont law perfect in every way? No, I do not contend that it 
is. The State was blocked and preempted from requiring a label on 
products that contain meat. And I will be the first to point out that 
there are challenges with Vermont being out there on its own with a 
label, but what we need to replace it is a strong national label that 
has been thoroughly debated and any confusion over intent clarified.
  This bill has been brought forward at this time simply to preempt 
Vermont's GE labeling law that just took effect on July 1. This, 
despite the fact that Vermont has a 6-month safe harbor or grace period 
until January 1, 2017. With 6 months left before Vermont's grace period 
ends, why are we not taking the time to hold a hearing? Why are we not 
having a full debate and amendment process? Why are we not listening to 
consumers in Vermont and across the nation who simply want to know what 
is in the food they feed their families and how it was produced?
  I hope other Senators will join me in rejecting these efforts to 
undermine the ability of States, such as Vermont, Alaska, Virginia, and 
others that choose to offer consumers and farmers purely factual, 
noncontroversial, and commercial information that furthers the 
legitimate and substantial interest of the State.
  I really can't support this so-called compromise. There have been no 
hearings and we have heard no testimony on it. It was suddenly handed 
to us as a fait accompli. We were told to take it or leave it. After 
all, the Big Money interests want us to take it. It is a last-minute 
attack on Vermont's law, and it is a last-minute attack on States' 
rights to set priorities at State government level.
  Instead of caving in to the lobbyists, we should be moving in a 
direction that offers consumers more information and more choices 
rather than hiding behind a toothless law that puts the industry's 
interests ahead of a consumer's right to know and sets industry 
interests ahead of consumers' right to know.
  This ``deal'' substitutes an easy-to-read label that everyone can 
understand, with a complicated scavenger hunt, which most people won't 
complete. It is a sham. It does not let people know what they need to 
know. It is a sham. Let's accept that. The Senate will vote one way or 
the other, but let's not have anybody going home saying we are 
protecting consumers. Instead, some Senators voted for a sham put up by 
a few well-heeled corporate lobbyists.

  I have said it before and I will say it again: 625,000 Vermonters 
deserve better. But even more importantly, all 325 million Americans 
deserve better. They should at the very least have had the benefit of 
hearings and full debate--to have people talk about this bill and have 
the opportunity to have our amendments considered. Instead, it was 
written in back rooms by heavily financed lobbyists, with input from 
corporate interests not the interests of the American people.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum, and ask unanimous consent that the 
time run equally on both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                Treaties

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today as the ranking 
Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the 
importance of treaties to the United States and to express my strong 
support for the ratification of a number of treaties whose consistency 
with current U.S. law, coupled with the tangible and material benefits 
they would deliver to U.S. citizens, businesses, and law enforcement 
authorities, should make their ratification noncontroversial.
  Treaties enhance and increase stability in an uncertain world. They 
offer a framework for U.S. global engagement in which we can work to 
promote American values such as equal rights, freedom of navigation, 
and the promotion of global commerce. Yet, with the 114th Congress 
drawing to a close, the Senate has not yet ratified a single treaty--a 
situation I consider to be an extraordinary state of affairs for this 
body, and I hope we can change this shortly.
  The value and importance of treaties to the interests of the United 
States and its citizens can be seen in the seven treaties the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee recently reported out. I thank Senator 
Corker and the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 
reporting these treaties to the floor of the Senate for its 
consideration.
  These treaties include the Convention on the Law Applicable to 
Certain

[[Page S4851]]

Rights in Respect of Securities Held with an Intermediary, known as the 
Hague Securities Convention, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic 
Resources for Food and Agriculture, two extradition treaties with the 
Dominican Republic and Chile, and three mutual legal assistance 
treaties with Jordan, Algeria, and Kazakhstan.
  Let me talk about these treaties. I am sure they are not getting the 
headlines of many other actions, but they are important to U.S. 
interests.
  The Hague Securities Convention was negotiated to address uncertainty 
as to what law governs cross-border transactions in stocks, bonds, and 
other securities. That legal uncertainty has imposed friction costs on 
securities transactions and increased risks for investors. The 
convention provides voluntary choice-of-law rules for securities that 
are held by an intermediary. It was drafted with close attention to the 
relevant passages of U.S. law on secure transactions, articles 8 and 9 
of the Uniform Commercial Code. The result modernizes these 
transactions and greatly enhances their predictability. It is totally 
consistent with current U.S. law. U.S. ratification of the Hague 
Securities Convention would be the deciding vote in bringing the 
convention into force, which will encourage other countries to sign on 
to this treaty that promotes global commerce and legal certainty with a 
system patterned on longstanding U.S. commercial law. The benefit of 
this treaty to U.S. business is obvious, which is why the convention is 
unanimously supported by the relevant stakeholders in the United 
States, including the Uniform Law Commission, which drafted the Uniform 
Commercial Code on which the convention is based, the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce, the Commercial Finance Association and Securities Industry 
and Financial Markets Association, the Financial Services Forum, the 
Emerging Markets Traders Association, the Depository Trust & Clearing 
Corporation, and numerous other securities clearance and banking 
entities. The stakeholders who understand the importance to U.S. 
business interests all support the ratification of this treaty.
  The second treaty the Foreign Relations Committee just reported is 
the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. This treaty has 
been in force for 12 years and already has 139 contracting partners. 
The U.S. ratification of the plant genetics treaty will benefit U.S. 
farmers as well as U.S. agricultural and research institutions.
  Plant breeders, farmers, and researchers need access to raw plant 
materials to develop improved plants that are more productive and 
nutritious. The plant genetics treaty aims to address this need through 
the creation of a formal global network for banking and sharing seeds. 
The treaty establishes a stable legal framework for international germ 
plasm exchanges of 64 different crops, including wheat, rice, potatoes, 
oats, maize, rye, strawberries, and apples. The sharing of these crops 
benefits both research and commercial interests in the United States 
through the development of new crop varieties that are more nutritious, 
more resistant to pests and diseases, show improved yields, and can 
better tolerate environmental stresses such as drought.
  The treaty is also unanimously supported by relevant U.S. 
stakeholders.
  I ask unanimous consent to have the full list printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Organizations Supporting U.S. Ratification of the International Treaty 
          on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

       AgReliant Genetics (Indiana), American Farm Bureau 
     Federation, American Phytopathological Society, American Seed 
     Trade Association, American Society of Plant Biologists, 
     American Soybean Association, Arkansas Seed Dealers' 
     Association, Bayer CropScience LP (North Carolina), Beck's 
     Hybrids (Indiana), Biotechnology Innovation Organization 
     (BIO), California Seed Association, Colorado Seed Industry 
     Association, Condor Seed (Arizona), Crop Production Services 
     (Colorado), Crop Science Society of America, Curtis & Curtis 
     (New Mexico), Delaware-Maryland Agribusiness Association, Dow 
     AgroSciences (Indiana), DuPont Pioneer (Iowa), Enza Zaden 
     U.S. (California).
       Georgia Agribusiness Council, Georgia Crop Improvement, 
     Georgia Seed Association, Grain and Feed Association of 
     Illinois, Grassland Oregon, GROWMARK (Illinois), HED Seeds 
     (California), HeinzSeed (California), HM.CLAUSE, Inc. 
     (California), Idaho-Eastern Oregon Seed Association, Illinois 
     Fertilizer & Chemical Association, Illinois Seed Trade 
     Association, Independent Professional Seed Association, 
     Indiana Seed Trade Association, Iowa Seed Association, J.R. 
     Simplot Company (Idaho), JoMar Seeds (Indiana), Justin Seed 
     (Texas), Kansas Seed Industry Association, Kansas Wheat 
     Alliance.
       Keithly-Williams Seeds (Arizona), Land O'Lakes, Inc 
     (Minnesota), Latham Hi-Tech Seeds (Iowa), Limagrain Cereal 
     Seeds, Monsanto (Missouri), National Association of Plant 
     Breeders, National Association of Wheat Growers, National 
     Corn Growers Association, National Cotton Council, National 
     Council of Commercial Plant Breeders, National Farmers Union, 
     National Sorghum Producers, Nebraska Agri-Business, New 
     Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) at Rutgers 
     University, New York State Agribusiness Association, North 
     Carolina Seedsmen's Association, Northern Seed Trade 
     Association, Northwest Nursery Improvement Institute, Ohio 
     AgriBusiness Association, Oregon Seed Association.
       Oregonians for Food & Shelter, Pacific Seed Association, 
     Produce Marketing Association, RiceTec (Texas), Rocky 
     Mountain Agribusiness Association, Rural and Agriculture 
     Council of America, Sakata Seed America (California), Seedway 
     LLC (Pennsylvania), Sharp Bros Seed (Kansas), Southern Crop 
     Production Association, Southern Seed Association, Syngenta 
     North America (Minnesota), Texas Ag Industries Association, 
     Texas Seed Trade Association, University of California, Davis 
     College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, 
     University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and 
     Environment, US Rice Producers Association, USA Rice, 
     Vilmorin, North America (California), Warner Seeds (Texas), 
     Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, Wisconsin Agri-
     Business Association, Wyoming Ag-Business Association, 
     Wyoming Wheat Marketing Commission.

  Mr. CARDIN. The list includes the American Seed Trade Association, 
the National Farmers Union, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, 
the National Association of Wheat Growers, the National Corn Growers 
Association, the American Soybean Association, numerous universities, 
and nearly 100 other farm, agricultural, and research groups. This 
agreement again is supported by all these stakeholders that understand 
the importance to American farmers, American commercial interests, and 
American consumers.
  I am deeply grateful to Chairman Corker and my colleagues on the 
Foreign Relations Committee who worked hard to advance these treaties 
to the Senate floor. My only regret is that I hoped we would have 
considered these two worthy, uncontroversial treaties earlier. Both the 
Hague Securities Convention and the plant genetic treaty provide 
tangible benefits to the United States and its stakeholders. Neither 
requires changes to U.S. law. Let me repeat that. Neither of these 
treaties would require us to change U.S. law. The Hague convention was 
signed by the United States in 2006 and has been awaiting ratification 
in this body since 2012. The plant genetics treaty was submitted to the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2008, received a hearing on 
November 10, 2009, and was reported by the committee in December 2010. 
Almost 6 years later, it still has not been considered by the full 
Senate. We can do better.
  I am hopeful the Senate will soon act to ratify these two treaties. 
However, I fear the long delay in their consideration speaks to a 
larger problem. I am dismayed some of my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle do not see the value of treaties and the benefits they 
accrue to U.S. citizens and businesses.
  As the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I 
call attention to my colleagues that we also have eight tax treaties 
pending on the floor of the Senate: tax conventions with Poland, 
Hungary, and Chile; protocols amending existing tax conventions with 
Japan, Switzerland, Spain, and Luxembourg; and a protocol amending the 
Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax 
Matters. With the exception of the Japan treaty, which was sent to the 
Senate relatively recently, each of these treaties has been considered 
and reported multiple times by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 
in recent years. They reflect the practices and procedures consistent 
with the tax treaties and protocols passed by the Senate since 1973. 
Since then, 68 tax treaties have been passed by this body by unanimous 
consent. Yet, because of the opposition of a single Member, the Senate 
has not ratified these vital treaties.

[[Page S4852]]

  Like the Hague Securities Convention and the plant genetics treaty, 
there are material benefits to U.S. ratification of these tax treaties. 
They establish a common framework with facilitating trade and 
investment and can reduce the taxes assessed on U.S. companies and 
individuals who have interests or work overseas. The seven countries 
with pending tax treaties have invested approximately $700 billion in 
the United States, with hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs and 
businesses tied to these investments. Ratification of these treaties 
would provide increased certainty and facilitate further investment in 
the United States and its people.
  The sole declared opponent of these tax treaties has raised privacy 
concerns regarding the collection of financial records. So let me be 
absolutely clear. These tax treaties are entirely consistent with the 
Fourth Amendment protections ensuring that American citizens are 
protected against unreasonable searches and seizures. As stated so 
eloquently by Chairman Corker, tax information exchanges with another 
country under any tax treaty are subject to stringent controls, are 
forbidden from so-called fishing expeditions, and are explicitly 
prohibited from information exchange requests for nontax purposes. That 
is protected in the treaty. The exchange of information standards in 
the pending treaty is in fact already being used in 56 tax treaties 
currently in force.
  The proposed threshold of these treaties would apply the same 
statutory standards to Americans with bank accounts abroad as already 
applies to Americans with bank accounts in the United States. We are 
not imposing any additional burdens on these accounts that are outside 
the United States. It is identical to what we impose on Americans in 
the United States. There is no reason people with foreign bank accounts 
should be able to hide their money from the IRS in a way that the 
average hard-working American cannot.
  Continued obstruction and indefinite delay of these eight tax 
treaties is an unacceptable state of affairs that does harm both to 
U.S. businesses and individuals who invest and work overseas and to 
U.S. businesses and citizens whose livelihoods remain linked to 
continued foreign investment in the United States. The Senate should 
act as soon as possible to give these treaties the long-awaited up-or-
down vote they deserve.
  There are other vital treaties that are pending before the Senate 
that are critical to American security and law enforcement interests. I 
hope the Senate will move forward in an expeditious fashion to ratify 
these treaties. In particular, I want to highlight five pending law 
enforcement treaties--two extradition treaties with the Dominican 
Republic and Chile and three mutual legal assistance treaties with 
Jordan, Algeria, and Kazakhstan. The extradition treaties update 
century-old treaties with the Dominion Republic and Chile, replacing 
outmoded lists of offenses with a modern dual criminality approach, in 
which instead of a long treaty list of extraditable offenses, offenders 
can be extradited if the offense is a crime in both the United States 
and the other country. The treaties incorporate a series of procedural 
improvements to streamline and speed up the extradition process.
  Mutual legal assistance treaties are agreements between countries for 
the purpose of gathering and exchanging information in an effort to 
cooperate on law enforcement issues. America can provide some 
assistance without these treaties, but ratification makes this process 
much clearer and much more streamlined.
  Ratification of these enforcement treaties will be of great benefit 
to the United States. To give but one example of how beneficial these 
treaties are to the United States, it has been estimated that for every 
person extradited from the United States to the Dominion Republic, 10 
are extradited here to face charges for crimes they have committed 
against the laws of the United States. So these treaties are very much 
in the U.S. interest.
  Of the 15 treaties I have discussed thus far, all should be entirely 
uncontroversial and capable of being passed without delay. Indeed, 
until very recently, tax and law enforcement treaties were passed 
routinely by unanimous consent, but there are other treaties the Senate 
has considered in recent years where ratification would also bring 
tangible benefits to the United States and its citizens. I want to 
highlight two in particular--the Convention on the Rights of Persons 
with Disabilities and the Law of the Sea Treaty.
  The Senate owes a great deal to former Senator Kerry and Senator 
Menendez for their work on the disabilities convention. Through 
multiple hearings across the 112th and 113th Congresses, it was 
established, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the treaties' principles 
are firmly based on American values. From the U.S. Constitution, the 
treaty borrows principles of equality and the protection of minorities; 
from the Declaration of Independence, it borrows the unalienable right 
to pursue happiness; and from the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 
gold standard for disability rights, the treaty borrows the concept of 
reasonable accommodation. U.S. ratification of the disability treaty 
would deliver material and palpable benefits to the 58 million 
Americans who have one or more disabilities, including 5.5 million 
American veterans. Ratification would impose no additional obligations 
on the United States but would give the United States a leadership 
position on the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 
from which we could effectively promote human rights and equal rights 
for those with disabilities and lend our expertise to other nations as 
they work to implement the treaty. Friendly countries would be able to 
rely on proven U.S. standards in crafting disability and accommodation 
policies that would not only positively affect their citizens but also 
U.S. students, tourists, servicemembers, and veterans who travel 
abroad.
  The disabilities treaty was overwhelmingly supported by veterans and 
disabilities groups. Unfortunately, and to the great dismay of so many, 
the Senate fell five votes short of ratification of the disabilities 
treaty in December of 2012. In July 2014, the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee again advanced the disabilities treaty out of committee. I 
was proud to vote in favor, and it is my hope the United States will 
ratify this valuable treaty so we can give the United States a say with 
how people with disabilities, including our own citizens, are treated 
around the world.
  It has now been over 2 years since the committee has acted on this, 
and I would hope the Senate would act on this in a responsible manner 
and that the United States would join with the other nations in support 
of the disability community.
  The failure to pass the Law of the Sea Treaty has been a failure of 
many Congresses. The United States played a critical role in developing 
the treaty in the 1970s, and we have the most to gain from being a part 
of this treaty. We shaped the construct of the treaty to be very 
favorable to the United States, including giving the United States the 
only permanent seat on the international council that would oversee and 
make decisions about deep seabed mining. Unfortunately, the permanent 
seat remains vacant and decisions are being made about seabed mining in 
international waters without U.S. participation. The estimated area of 
the territorial expansion over which the United States could claim 
sovereignty under the continental shelf expansion conventions of the 
treaty is an area estimated to be about 291,000 square miles, or 
roughly 1.5 times the size of the State of Texas. Though the Senate's 
failure to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty is a longstanding one, 
recent events have brought the viability and wisdom of U.S. nonparty 
status even further into question.
  For example--and we talked about this before on the floor of the 
Senate--the disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, coupled with increased 
access to mineral resources in the Arctic seabed, is influencing the 
territorial claims our Arctic neighbors--Canada, Russia, Denmark, 
Greenland, Iceland, and Norway--are making, and all of these countries 
are making legal claims under the Law of the Sea Treaty. The United 
States is the only Arctic nation not staking any expanded claims in the 
Arctic, nor are we challenging the actions of our neighbors who may be 
encroaching on waters to which we could

[[Page S4853]]

have a claim. The State Department cannot be blamed for not making 
claims or challenging our neighbors. It is the Senate that has failed 
to give the State Department the ability to rightfully stake claims and 
challenge the legality of our competitors' claims--purely out of an 
unfounded and ideologically partisan opposition to the United States 
being a party to the Law of the Sea Treaty.

  The situation in the Arctic is just one reason to reconsider 
ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty. Our failure to be a party of 
the treaty framework means we lack the ability to fully work with our 
allies and partners in the South China Sea region to address the 
ongoing maritime security issues. A broad set of stakeholders--ranging 
from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the environmental organizations 
and our Nation's military to industry-specific trade groups 
representing commercial fishing, freight shipping, and mineral 
extractions--all support U.S. accession to the treaty.
  I remember the hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 
where we had our generals testifying before us that it is in our U.S. 
national security interests to be a member of the Law of the Sea and to 
ratify that treaty.
  In particular, our naval leaders have made it clear that the United 
States' participation in the Law of the Sea will help them maintain 
navigational rights more effectively and with less risk to the men and 
women they command.
  I can only hope that the Senate will soon ratify the Law of the Sea 
Treaty, which will secure U.S. interests and reaffirm the principles of 
freedom of operations and freedom of navigation in international waters 
and airspace, in accordance with established principles and practices 
of international law.
  I must note that for many of the treaties whose benefits I have just 
described, there is a disturbing pattern to the continued obstruction 
and delaying their consideration. Regardless of how many hearings are 
held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to examine the treaties, 
regardless of how many benefits would accrue to the United States, and 
no matter how many stakeholders weigh in in favor of ratification, even 
the most inoffensive treaties can languish for years without advancing 
and sometimes be scuttled by one lone objector whose reasoning has 
nothing to do with the facts about the treaty in question but has 
everything to do with partisan politics and ideology. Continued delay 
on treaty ratification only hinders the interests of the United States 
and its citizens.
  I welcome the recent movement of the Hague Security Convention and 
the plant genetics treaty and the five law enforcement treaties by the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported out last week. But I 
believe it is time for the Senate to do more--much more--to ratify 
additional treaties that deliver tangible, material benefits to the 
United States and its citizens.
  It is time to ratify these treaties.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                 MARVA

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, I had the privilege of 
visiting the Mid-Arkansas River Valley Abilities Workshop, better known 
as MARVA, in Russellville, AR, just over the bridge from my hometown of 
Dardanelle.
  For more than 40 years, MARVA has provided individuals with 
developmental disabilities meaningful work in a supportive environment 
and given them access to a variety of social services. Those employed 
at MARVA produce and sell, for example, top-quality recyclables, 
planners, and calendars.
  My visit to MARVA deeply moved me. I saw firsthand how important this 
organization is to so many Arkansans, and I met and heard from some 
truly amazing people, like Ron, who has been at MARVA for 17 years. Ron 
said he had dropped out of 3 different colleges and was fired from 10 
jobs before he was diagnosed with a mental illness. Ron was actually 
told by one former employer: ``You are dumb and have no future.'' Ron 
moved back to Arkansas and found his place at MARVA, where he is 
currently thriving. In Ron's words:

       MARVA has helped me to feel that I can be independent and 
     encouraged me to feel a sense of worth. I feel that my life 
     has come from the gutter to glory. I can't imagine any other 
     life. I don't want to get fired again.

  I also met Mike, an Arkansan who has been employed at MARVA for 38 
years--38 years. Mike was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the age of 
2. He was lucky enough to have parents who took him to the best schools 
and the best physical therapy, but there are still real limitations 
from his disability. For Mike, MARVA has been a saving grace. His mom 
said it is a safe environment for him to grow as a person, providing 
purpose for his life and a network of friends with whom to socialize--
and earn a little money while doing it.
  MARVA offers Ron, Mike, and 28 other Arkansans a chance to be part of 
a team, a chance to do meaningful work, make friends, and have loving, 
understanding coaches and mentors who recognize their limitations. It 
offers them integration and a chance to live a full and meaningful 
life.
  I talk about MARVA today not just because it is an incredible place 
with incredible people but because there is a movement afoot in 
Congress that could harm or even eliminate places like MARVA.
  Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act helps create employment 
opportunities for persons with disabilities that prevent them from 
finding jobs at market rates. In nearly all cases, these waivers are 
used for sheltered workshops like MARVA. These organizations are 
nonprofits with a mission to help persons with disabilities, not 
companies getting rich from subminimum wage labor.
  I recognize that some in the disability rights community oppose 
14(c). I met with some good people who devote their lives to serving 
the disabled and have this point of view. There are bills in both the 
House and the Senate to eliminate 14(c), and, in turn, likely shut down 
organizations like MARVA. I am sympathetic to their concerns, 
especially in rare isolated cases of abuse. And if there is a choice 
between a workshop job and a suitable market job in, say, a retail 
store, for many disabled persons the market job would be a better 
option. But as the client-workers and their families told me, at MARVA 
they don't have this choice. They can't choose between a sheltered 
workshop job and a market job. It is this employment or nothing. And 
who can argue that the client-workers of MARVA would be better off not 
having this opportunity? Would that be progress? Or would that be an 
unintentional but tragic return to the failed and limiting policies of 
the past?
  I encourage all of my colleagues to visit a workshop like MARVA and 
talk to the full-time staff and the client-workers, talk to the family 
members of the client-workers, and see for yourself how important these 
organizations are in the lives of people with disabilities who have 
found a place that offers them meaningful work in their community. 
MARVA and similar organizations are a true blessing to their client-
workers, their families, customers, and all Arkansans. I am committed 
to protecting MARVA and organizations like it from any effort to close 
them down. And if you want the simplest reason why, I will close by 
reading a Facebook post from Mike's brother:

       Whether it's shredding by hand outdated phone books or 
     making ballpoint pens for area businesses, these people WANT 
     to work and are fiercely dedicated to doing their jobs with 
     pride, and they want to work in the environments where they 
     feel sheltered, safe, and where their needs are met. God 
     bless MARVA and may all healthy sheltered workshops survive 
     and keep giving life and a sense of purpose to people like 
     Mike.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, I come to the floor to urge all my 
colleagues to stop denying science and to start understanding that GMO 
ingredients are just as healthy for American consumers as any other 
ingredient.
  We all recognize that there are a fair number of consumers--some of 
whom we heard from loudly yesterday--who have concerns. So as we 
address this issue and as we see the growing interest in knowing more 
about ingredients in our food, the more we realize that

[[Page S4854]]

we can't have 50 States--and even the potential of some political 
subdivisions--passing different labeling standards. We have to have a 
unified labeling standard.
  But I think I have been disturbed over the last couple months as we 
have debated this issue from the standpoint of a public health issue 
and not a consumer issue. I think it is critically important that we 
set the record straight on genetically modified ingredients and that we 
make sure everyone in our country understands the science of what we 
have been doing over almost centuries of work in growing more resilient 
and better yielding crops. We wouldn't be able to do that in America 
today or across the world without genetics, without actually looking at 
applying science to the work we do in agriculture.

  As I have said on this floor many times, North Dakota prides itself 
in being the top producer of a wide variety of crops, and our diversity 
is something I am particularly proud of. This includes conventionally 
bred, organic, and genetically modified, or GMO, crops. We grow GMO 
sugar beets, corn, soybeans, and canola. I will say that again, and I 
will say it proudly. We grow GMO sugar beets, corn, soybeans, and 
canola, but we also grow non-GMO products, including many organics.
  I think that is what makes American agriculture so resistant and 
resilient, and it makes American agriculture great. GMOs increase and 
stabilize productivity, and high yields can make a big difference in 
the prices we have today. Non-GMO options provide paid premiums to 
farmers, and there are a group of consumers willing to pay it. That is 
the diversity we see in agriculture today.
  We should be encouraging this innovation and doing what we can to 
encourage new products, not just for our farmers' benefit but for the 
benefit of agricultural biotechnology all across the world and the 
benefits that biotechnology provide.
  After all, when you look at the story of American agriculture, it is 
one of innovation. Some of our greatest accomplishments as Americans 
have come from our agricultural research and our innovation. Whether it 
is our land grant universities, extension services, co-op 
organizations, or Federal research investments, agricultural innovation 
has helped to increase production, preserve resources, and literally 
save lives.
  I want to remind everyone about a person who is a great American 
hero. This person is Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug. Borlaug 
is thought of as the forefather of modern agricultural biotechnology. 
Because of Borlaug's dedication to innovation and making sure we can 
feed a growing world, he is known as ``The Man Who Saved a Billion 
Lives.''
  His wheat breeding work created a wheat that didn't bend and break as 
it grew, enabling increased production and revolutionizing farming in 
America and across the world. As he saved countless lives, he sparked 
the Green Revolution. That is why we know biotechnology isn't just good 
for farmers--although it is, especially, during price downturns. It 
increases and stabilizes yields and fights against crop pests and 
disease.
  Agricultural biotechnology is also great for consumers, not just in 
stabilizing or reducing prices. It can literally save lives, like the 
golden rice can. Just last week, as we prided ourselves on this side by 
saying we need to make decisions based on science, over 100 Nobel 
laureates wrote to dispute claims involving golden rice and to talk 
about how important those innovations were to saving populations from 
blindness and from disease.
  If we really are concerned about science, let's start talking about 
science, and let's start realizing that in no place has there ever been 
a study that said these ingredients, GMO inputs, are bad for consumers 
or in any way injure our livelihood or our health.
  The bottom line is this technology is safe, and we have nothing to 
hide. If anyone has heard me talk about GMOs, I frequently say, when 
people come in to argue with me: I give them to my grandchildren. There 
is no higher endorsement for any woman than being willing to gladly 
feed her grandchildren GMO foods, and I realize I wish every grandchild 
throughout the world had access to the quality products we grow.
  I also have said time and again that the more we fight efforts to 
provide this transparency, the more we look like we have something to 
hide. That is why I proudly support the Roberts-Stabenow compromise 
bill. I don't think GMO labeling is something I am particularly 
interested in. It is not something I am going to look for in my label, 
but if you want to know, then you should have a right to know.
  If consumers want to know the ingredients in their food, let's tell 
them. Let's tell the real story of the compromise bill and what that 
means for consumer information literally across the country. Today in 
America, there is just one piece of legislation, one State that 
requires GMO labeling on their packaging, and that is the State of 
Vermont. The other States that have enacted this will only implement 
their bill if four more States adopt the same kind of provision.
  What it means is for all of these other consumers who want to know 
what is in their ingredients, they are going to have to wait 
generations or they may never have access to that kind of information.
  The GMO label, what consumers can know about their food and whether 
their food actually contains genetically modified ingredients, will be 
nationwide. Instead of that very small group of consumers in Vermont 
knowing, the entire country will have access to that information.
  For people to suggest that access can't be provided using modern 
technology is a fallacy. We all know the information that we receive 
about our ingredients, about our life, how many times have we turned to 
ourselves and said: ``I don't know the answer to that; Google it.'' It 
has become almost a knee-jerk reaction for us to get that instant 
information. This is an opportunity not only with this label and with 
this packaging to know about genetically modified ingredients. There is 
a possibility if you want to know about antibiotics in your food, if 
you want to know about whether it is gluten-free or whether it contains 
some kind of peanut oil. All of that information would readily be 
provided to consumers.
  If consumers don't have the ability to scan when they are in the 
grocery store, most places, especially major grocery store chains, will 
provide that access. We are expanding, in a way that really is unheard 
of, access to consumer information. That is why I think all of the 
arguments we have been hearing that we somehow are hiding something or 
that we are trying to keep this in the dark--what we are trying to say 
is this: If we are going to have a label, it should be a national label 
and that label should provide the information to all the people of our 
country or access to that information for all the people of our 
country.
  I don't want to leave this debate without reiterating once again that 
what this bill does is for the first time to give national access to 
every consumer in this country and a way to find out what the 
ingredients are in their food, particularly whether their food has been 
processed or manufactured with genetically modified ingredients.
  As to people who suggest that we are not looking at a bill that 
provides transparency, that label is going to be mandatory. It is going 
to provide essential information, and it resolves that issue of 
transparency. As the time bottom line, what we need to do in this 
country is we need to do a better job of educating consumers about what 
genetically modified ingredients are, why they are safe, why every 
agency and 100 Nobel laureates have told us we have nothing to fear 
from genetically modified ingredients. We need to learn the lesson of 
Norman Borlaug--the lesson that through technology, through application 
of good science, we can feed a very hungry world. We ought not to hide 
from that. We ought to be proud of that.
  I know this debate is not yet over. I know we will continue to have a 
debate, certainly, among consumer groups, and I am more than willing to 
engage in that debate and defend what our farmers do, which is to 
provide options to all consumers. Whether it is genetically modified 
organisms, whether it is organic or non-GMO, we are ready to provide 
that kind of input, but we have to educate on the science why these 
products are completely safe. I think that is where we have failed.

[[Page S4855]]

  I urge everyone to support the Stabenow-Roberts compromise. I think 
it achieves that label and achieves that access, and it does this: It 
tells every consumer in the entire country that they will have access 
to this information instead of the one small State of Vermont.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator from Arkansas.


                        Tribute To Patrick Combs

  Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I would like to recognize Patrick Combs, 
of Hot Springs, AK, as this week's Arkansan of the Week, for teaching 
Arkansas students to share his love of music and pushing them to 
succeed in everything they do.
  Patrick just completed his fourth year as band director for the 
entire Fountain Lake School District. As the program's sole instructor, 
Patrick teaches instrumental music for all middle school and high 
school students and directs both the marching and symphonic bands. To 
put that in perspective, the Fountain Lake Middle School and High 
School have a combined student body of over 800 students.
  Patrick is remarkable not just for teaching so many students, 
although I know that is a feat in and of itself. Under his direction, 
the Fountain Lake music program has truly soared. Over the last 4 years 
the number of Fountain Lake students who earned a place in all-region 
bands more than doubled, and the number of students who won competitive 
tryouts in the Four States Honor Band and the Arkansas All-Star Band 
both more than tripled.
  As a group, the Fountain Lake band earned a first division ranking in 
concert assessment for all 4 years of Patrick's tenure. In 3 of his 4 
years, the band also had the honor of being an Arkansas Sweepstakes 
band. Most recently, the Fountain Lake band was one of only two 
Arkansas bands selected to participate in this year's National 
Independence Day Festival on the Fourth of July here in Washington. I 
was able to see the Fountain Lake band while they were in town and 
congratulate them on this big achievement. While I, unfortunately, 
wasn't able to see the parade in person, all reports indicated their 
performance was spectacular. I know I speak for all Arkansans when I 
say they truly made the Natural State proud. I am confident their 
success was due in no small part to Patrick's leadership, as well as 
the hard work of Fountain Lake students.
  I am honored to recognize Patrick Combs as this week's Arkansan of 
the Week and commend him for his dedication to music education and the 
Fountain Lake School District. Arkansas is lucky that a passionate 
educator like Patrick calls our State home.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.


                           FCC Accountability

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I rise today to speak about the 
importance of keeping independent agencies accountable to Congress and 
to the American people. Congress created independent agencies to be 
places where expertise in complex areas of the Nation's economy informs 
policymaking within limits set by Congress. One such congressional 
creation is the Federal Communications Commission.
  Congress conferred independence on the FCC so it would be free from 
the normal control exercised by the President over the executive 
branch. In recent years, the FCC has behaved less like an independent 
commission accountable to Congress and more as a de facto arm of the 
executive branch, wholly subservient to the President. At the same 
time, the FCC has become more partisan than ever before and an 
institution that has seized greater regulatory power while 
simultaneously shutting down bipartisan dialogue and compromise.
  The recent rulemaking proceedings regarding title II common carrier 
authority, the massively expanded E-rate and Lifeline programs, 
backward-looking set-top box rules, and the agency's power grab over 
privacy regulations have all been characterized by a lack of bipartisan 
compromise or respect for the limits of the authority delegated by 
Congress. Much of the responsibility for this downward trajectory rests 
with the current FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler.
  For example, during Chairman Wheeler's confirmation process, I asked 
him if he would commit to coming to Congress for more direction before 
attempting another iteration of net neutrality rules. Mr. Wheeler 
unequivocally said that he would do so. However, not only did Mr. 
Wheeler not come to Congress for more direction, at the behest of 
President Obama, he jammed through the most radical implementation of 
net neutrality rules ever--a power grab of stunning proportions--and he 
did so on a purely partisan vote.
  The number of 3-to-2 party-line votes on Commission meeting items 
during Mr. Wheeler's tenure are a clear indication of an FCC Chairman 
who embraces partisanship over compromise. In just the first year of 
his chairmanship, Mr. Wheeler forced through more items on party-line 
votes than the previous four chairs combined. Chairman Wheeler speaks 
often of his belief in the importance of competition and market forces. 
Hearing that, one might think he might exercise his agency's powers 
with a light touch in order to promote the incredible innovation in 
which our communication sector is capable. Instead, Chairman Wheeler 
seems more focused on waging partisan battles and accumulating more 
power while at the same time avoiding accountability to Congress and 
the American people.

  I have come to the floor to talk about the most recent example of 
Chairman Wheeler utilizing questionable legal authority while 
simultaneously trying to dodge public accountability. This example 
relates to the FCC's rules about disclosure of nonpublic information. 
The FCC's own rules prohibit its employees from disclosing nonpublic 
information to anyone outside the Commission unless expressly 
authorized by the Commission or its rules. Nonpublic information 
includes details of upcoming rulemakings or other actions the 
Commissioners are still negotiating. These rules are intended to foster 
the Commission's ability to have honest and fulsome negotiations among 
the Commissioners and staff and to prevent any special interests from 
gaining a particular advantage over other stakeholders.
  Earlier this year, however, Commissioner Michael O'Rielly wrote a 
blog post expressing his concerns that Chairman Wheeler was instead 
using these rules to muzzle other Commissioners. Though Commissioner 
O'Rielly respected the Commission's rules against disclosing details 
without authorization to the press or other stakeholders, he pointed 
out that Chairman Wheeler was freely disclosing nonpublic information 
whenever he wanted. Commissioner O'Rielly was concerned that this 
allowed Chairman Wheeler to frame and influence the public's 
understanding of upcoming issues to his advantage by selectively 
disclosing information that no other Commissioner is allowed to discuss 
publicly. Indeed, the Chairman's staff would later tell my staff that 
Commissioner O'Rielly would not be permitted to correct a factual error 
stated by Chairman Wheeler if doing so meant discussing nonpublic 
information.
  As chairman of the Commerce Committee, I sent a letter this past 
March asking Chairman Wheeler to explain whether he discloses nonpublic 
information to outside groups and how the Commission authorizes the 
disclosures.
  Madam President, I refer my colleagues to the letters with the 
exchange between myself and Chairman Wheeler that can be found at 
http://bit.ly/29r76uO.
  Chairman Wheeler maintained that as chairman he can unilaterally 
authorize disclosures of nonpublic information whenever he wants 
without any need for approval by the Commission, despite the clear 
prohibition against doing so in the Commission's own rules.
  The events surrounding the FCC's March 31 open meeting are a striking 
example of how the selective leaking of nonpublic information can be 
used to distort an ongoing debate and turn an emerging bipartisan 
consensus into a partisan power grab. The open meeting agenda included 
an order expanding Lifeline, which is a program that has spent billions 
of ratepayer dollars in an effort to improve access to communications 
technology for low-income Americans. While the goal of this program is

[[Page S4856]]

important, unfortunately, it has been replete with rampant fraud for 
years, which the U.S. Government Accountability Office has recognized 
on more than one occasion. A compromise on Lifeline between a 
Democratic Commissioner and the two Republican Commissioners was 
emerging. This compromise would have included a spending cap to prevent 
the program from wasting ratepayer dollars. However, it turns out 
Chairman Wheeler was not on board with this compromise.
  On the morning of March 31, Chairman Wheeler delayed the open meeting 
by several hours, a highly unusual move. During the delay, Politico 
published a story about the emerging bipartisan compromise, citing 
``sources familiar with the negotiations.'' Disclosure of any 
information about ongoing negotiations right before an open meeting is 
a direct violation of the FCC's sunshine rules, which protect 
Commissioners' deliberations.
  What happened next is exactly what you might expect. The Politico 
story spurred outside political pressure against the emerging 
bipartisan compromise, which subsequently fell apart. Ultimately, the 
Lifeline order moved forward on a 3-to-2 party-line vote, without a cap 
or other bipartisan reforms, right in line with Chairman Wheeler's 
preference. Yet another 3-to-2 party-line vote--forced by the 
Chairman--thwarting a commonsense and bipartisan compromise. Just last 
week, 12 States, including my home State of South Dakota, sued the FCC 
in the Federal appellate court here in Washington, DC, challenging the 
regulatory overreach of the FCC's Lifeline order that came out at that 
very March 31 open meeting.
  In April, I sent another letter asking Chairman Wheeler to explain 
the source of his claim of authority to disclose whatever nonpublic 
information he wants whenever he wants, which was the assertion he 
made. I also asked a direct question: Did you, Chairman Wheeler, 
authorize the disclosure of nonpublic information to Politico on the 
morning of March 31 in advance of the open meeting? Chairman Wheeler 
responded that his position as chief executive of the Commission 
empowers him to do anything that streamlines the FCC's work. According 
to his interpretation, if the Chairman decides on his own that 
releasing nonpublic information will make the FCC operate more 
efficiently, he can do it, even though the FCC's rules explicitly 
prohibit the disclosure of nonpublic information.
  I appreciate the role the Chairman plays in the day-to-day management 
of the Commission, but this appears to be a specious attempt to exempt 
the Chairman from a very clear rule. Indeed, there is no record the 
Commission ever intended for its Chairman to be exempt when the agency 
adopted the rule 20 years ago, and the rule very clearly gives the 
Commission, not its Chairman, the authority to disclose nonpublic 
information.
  In responding to my April letter, Chairman Wheeler also ignored the 
question of whether he personally authorized the leak to Politico on 
the morning of the open meeting. My staff followed up with Mr. 
Wheeler's staff several times on this matter, and they emphatically 
stated that Chairman Wheeler refuses to answer this question.
  Everyone who cares about government accountability should pause to 
think about this. Even though Chairman Wheeler claims he has the legal 
authority to leak whatever nonpublic information he wants whenever he 
wants, he nevertheless has refused to answer this simple question about 
whether he indeed authorized the leak on the morning of March 31. Since 
Mr. Wheeler could have just said no, if he did not actually authorize 
the leak of nonpublic information, that leaves only two possible 
conclusions; one, that Chairman Wheeler did authorize the leak but is 
not confident in his roundabout interpretation of the rules and fears 
admitting to violating them or, two, Chairman Wheeler simply does not 
respect the legitimate role of congressional oversight and believes he 
is unaccountable to the American people.
  I would also note that while Chairman Wheeler refused to answer 
whether he authorized the disclosure, he sought to obfuscate and cast 
blame by stating it was the Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai who leaked 
the public information in advance of the open meeting. This shell game 
is unworthy of a chairman of an independent commission.
  Indeed, Mr. Wheeler's attempt to cast blame on another Commissioner 
only adds emphasis to the overall point I am making; that is, that 
Chairman Wheeler seeks to use the rule prohibiting the disclosure of 
nonpublic information as both a shield and a sword. On the one hand, he 
claims the rule prohibiting the disclosure of nonpublic information 
does not apply to him, but on the other hand he seeks to shut down 
criticism and debate from another Commissioner by stating the 
Commissioner may have violated the rule prohibiting disclosure of 
nonpublic information. The FCC's nonpublic information rules were 
intended to facilitate and protect internal communication 
deliberations. Chairman Wheeler is instead using them to stifle or 
manipulate the other Commissioners.
  Fortunately, the FCC Office of the Inspector General is now 
investigating what happened on March 31. The IG is looking into who 
disclosed the nonpublic information about ongoing negotiations among 
the Commissioners, including any role Chairman Wheeler had in the leak 
to Politico. I look forward to the IG's findings and expect we will 
learn the answers to the questions I have posed to Chairman Wheeler, 
particularly the one question he has refused to answer so far. Taken 
alone, the Lifeline leak may seem to be just a minor transgression that 
can be chalked up to business as usual in Washington, DC, but in the 
case of current FCC leadership, it is just one example out of many that 
demonstrates a disregard for the limits Congress has placed on the 
agency's authority.
  The regulatory power grabs over title II's common carrier authority 
and the FCC's recent privacy rule are further evidence that Chairman 
Wheeler shares the Obama administration's propensity for legal 
overreach and the intentional circumvention of Congress. In this 
environment, congressional oversight is more important than ever as a 
critical check on bureaucratic power. Regardless of who sits at the 
helm of a commission, such oversight must be pursued, and I am 
committed to make sure it does.


      Former Secretary Clinton's Use of an Unsecured Email Server

  Madam President, this week FBI Director James Comey announced the 
results of Hillary Clinton's email use during her time as Secretary of 
State. What we discovered was this: As Secretary of State, Hillary 
Clinton repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence.
  Here is what Director Comey had to say:

       Although we do not find clear evidence that Secretary 
     Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing 
     the handling of classified information, there is evidence 
     that they were extremely careless in their handling of very 
     sensitive, highly classified information.

  That is a quote from FBI Director Comey. Let me repeat that quote. 
The FBI concluded that President Obama's Secretary of State--our 
Nation's chief diplomat and the person who is fourth in line to the 
Presidency--displayed gross carelessness when handling information 
related to our national security. If Hillary Clinton can't be trusted 
to safeguard national security information as Secretary of State, she 
cannot be trusted to protect national security information as the 
Democratic nominee for President, and she certainly can't be trusted as 
our Commander in Chief.
  There are some who would like to take the FBI Director's speech as 
vindication for Secretary Clinton, since the FBI Director ultimately 
did not recommend prosecution, but the FBI Director's statement is no 
vindication. It is an indictment. The Secretary betrayed the trust the 
American people had placed in her. She repeatedly lied to the American 
people about the purpose of the server, what was on the server, and the 
threat it posed to our national security. Secretary Clinton repeatedly 
claimed there was no classified information on her server, but the FBI 
investigation found otherwise.
  According to Director Comey, Secretary Clinton sent or received at 
least 110 emails in 52 separate email chains containing classified 
information--52 separate classified conversations. And of those 52 
classified email conversations, 8 contained top secret information, the 
highest level of classification,

[[Page S4857]]

and 36 contained secret information. Secretary Clinton knew she was 
placing national security information at risk.
  The FBI Director said--when discussing the top secret emails 
transmitted over the Secretary's unclassified email system--``There is 
evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in 
Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those government 
employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should 
have known that an unclassified system was no place'' for top-secret 
communications.

  As a reasonable person, the Secretary unquestionably knew that the 
proper place for classified information was on a classified server, but 
she decided to use her personal server anyway.
  Secretary Clinton has tried to argue that using a private server in 
violation of State Department rules did not jeopardize our national 
security. Even President Obama, in what was a highly suspect public 
comment on an ongoing FBI investigation, said her private server wasn't 
a national security threat. But according to the FBI Director, that 
certainly wasn't the case. Director Comey explicitly stated that it was 
entirely possible that ``hostile actors gained access to Secretary 
Clinton's personal e-mail account.'' And he wasn't just referring to 
ordinary hackers. The Director noted that Secretary Clinton ``used her 
personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including 
sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of 
sophisticated adversaries'' and that that fact was one that led the FBI 
to the conclusion that her email account might have been compromised. 
In other words, it is entirely possible that our Nation's enemies 
gained access to Secretary Clinton's emails thanks to her decision to 
use her personal account.
  Despite Secretary Clinton's claim that the servers were protected, 
Director Comey went to great lengths to describe how the servers had 
substantially less protection than government servers and even had less 
protection than common commercial servers like Gmail.
  Yesterday, Senator Gardner introduced legislation, which I 
cosponsored, that would remove the security clearance of Secretary 
Clinton and any of her staff members involved in the mishandling of 
classified information and block Secretary Clinton from accessing 
classified information in her capacity as a Presidential candidate. I 
have to say, unfortunately, that I think that is the right call.
  Secretary Clinton has demonstrated that she has no respect for the 
security of classified information, and she, like anybody else, should 
face the consequences. As the FBI Director noted, most people who had 
done what the Secretary did would face consequences for their actions. 
Other individuals found by the FBI to have engaged in such reckless 
handling of classified information would, at a very minimum, have their 
security clearance revoked and would likely face termination. The rules 
shouldn't be different for Secretary Clinton because she held a 
powerful position. In fact, those in a position of such great trust 
should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. Do we really want 
to set the precedent that wielding political power places an individual 
above the law? Boy, I sure don't think we want to go there, but that is 
exactly what is happening as a result of this decision.
  I look forward to hearing what Director Comey has to say in his 
testimony today before the House Oversight and Government Reform 
Committee. I hope we will hear him discuss the reasoning behind the 
decision not to recommend prosecution when the Secretary so clearly 
displayed, in the Director's own words, extreme carelessness in 
handling classified information.
  I also hope the FBI will release the transcript of Secretary 
Clinton's FBI interview and other documents requested by Senator 
Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A Secretary 
of State mishandling classified information is a grave matter. The 
American people deserve to know all the facts, and they deserve the 
truth.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                          Executive Overreach

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, Senator Thune was just on the floor 
talking about Executive overreach. Well, let me tell my colleagues that 
2 weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a stinging 
rebuke and a stinging defeat to the Obama administration and to its 
immigration amnesty plan. There have been a string of stinging defeats 
for the President's approach of what I believe is an Executive 
overreach. The courts agree with me. For years, President Obama has 
been acting as though he believes he has unlimited power to do whatever 
he wants to do, regardless of what the law of the land says. Now the 
courts have finally said: Enough is enough.
  In this case, President Obama decided that for political purposes, he 
was going to stop enforcing some of the country's immigration laws. 
Twenty-six States said that was outrageous and they filed a lawsuit.
  It is the President's job to enforce the laws of the United States, 
and the law is very clear. The law is clear when it comes to 
immigration, and the President deciding to change it basically says he 
is willing to ignore the law, because he didn't come to Congress to get 
it changed, he decided to do it with regulation alone. The courts have 
said it is not the President's call, and they have now blocked the 
President's amnesty plan.
  During an event in 2013, the President actually seemed to understand 
that he was just one part of America's Government. He said: ``The 
problem is that I'm the President of the United States, I'm not the 
emperor of the United States.'' He went on to say: ``My job is to 
execute the laws that are passed.'' He understood at that time that it 
was his job--at least he understood it in 2013. So what happened 
between then and now?
  If the President says, as he did, ``I'm not the emperor,'' why is it 
that it seems that almost every action he takes seems to show that he 
wants to act as if he is the emperor? Time after time, he has shown 
that he considers himself above the law. We know he doesn't like to 
deal with Congress--not with Republicans or with Democrats; he likes to 
ignore Congress--and he doesn't like having to deal with the courts, so 
he tries to pack them full of people who will rule the way he tells 
them to rule. We saw that when Harry Reid changed the rules of the 
Senate. It seems the President doesn't like to listen to the voters, 
either, so he goes ahead and does what he wants to do no matter what 
the American people say they want.

  This case last month is not the first time a Federal court has said 
that President Obama acted above the law or even against the law. Last 
June, the Supreme Court struck down a regulation that was a big part of 
the Obama administration's War on Coal. The Supreme Court said that the 
Washington bureaucrats who wrote this rule never even considered the 
overwhelming costs--this is the Supreme Court saying this--never even 
considered the overwhelming costs that they were imposing on hard-
working American families. The President never even considered that. 
The Court said: ``One would not say that it is even rational''--the 
President's actions weren't even rational--``never mind appropriate, to 
impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few 
dollars in health and environmental benefits.'' The Supreme Court told 
President Obama that he is the President of the United States, not the 
emperor of the United States.
  Then look what happened last October. Another court, a U.S. appeals 
court, blocked the Obama administration's new regulation that vastly 
expanded the definition of ``waters of the United States.'' The 
Environmental Protection Agency wanted to give itself control over all 
the waters--all of them, including huge chunks of private property in 
this country, including farms and ranches--and do it by taking control 
of isolated ponds, prairie potholes, and irrigation ditches--all of 
these little areas the government can take control of, and they control 
the land. What did the appeals court do? The appeals court stepped in 
and stopped the administration's actions because of what it called 
``the sheer breadth of the ripple effects caused by the rule.'' This 
appeals court told President Obama that he is the President of the 
United States, he is not the emperor.

[[Page S4858]]

  That is the same thing the Supreme Court told President Obama back in 
February. The Supreme Court stopped another EPA rule over carbon 
dioxide emissions from existing powerplants--powerplants that have been 
there and are functioning. Just like the so-called waters of the United 
States rule, the Court said that the administration could not just go 
ahead and do whatever it wanted to do. The rule could do so much damage 
that the Court said they had to stop the President in his tracks.
  The Supreme Court said that it was skeptical anytime a Washington 
agency claims to suddenly find broad powers. And that is what has been 
happening now--the Washington agency is going back to old laws and 
finding new broad powers that have been in law and that have been on 
the books and functioning for a long time. The Supreme Court said they 
are very skeptical of an administration that does that.
  The Court said: ``We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to 
assign to an agency decisions of vast economic and political 
significance.'' Well, Congress never did that with carbon dioxide. The 
Obama administration just made it up, and the Supreme Court told the 
President that he is the President of the United States, not the 
emperor.
  In May, the Supreme Court issued another decision to stop the Obama 
administration from taking away people's rights--the rights to use 
their own land. This had to do with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 
taking control of private land. The Obama administration went so far 
overboard that they said people shouldn't even be allowed to challenge 
the Obama administration's decisions in court. I mean, can my 
colleagues imagine that? The Obama administration went so far overboard 
that they said people shouldn't be allowed to challenge the Obama 
administration's decisions in court. This President doesn't want 
Congress to have any say in what he does, and now he doesn't even want 
the courts to have a say in what he does. American families shouldn't 
have to fight Washington just to use their own property. They certainly 
shouldn't have to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.
  Amazingly, this was a unanimous decision against the President by the 
Supreme Court. Even the most liberal Justices voted against the 
President on this issue, to show how much Executive overreach we are 
dealing with. The Supreme Court told the President once again that he 
is the President of the United States, not the emperor of the United 
States.
  It has been one case after another saying the exact same thing.
  I wish to give one final example of this string of stinging defeats 
for President Obama. Last month, the U.S. district court in Wyoming 
shut down President Obama's latest attempt to stop American energy 
production. It had to do with regulations on hydraulic fracturing on 
land controlled by Washington and by Indian tribes. The judge in this 
case said the administration had no authority whatsoever to issue the 
regulation in the first place. This was a judge appointed by President 
Obama. The judge wrote that ``Congress has not directed the 
[administration] to enact regulations governing hydraulic fracturing.'' 
The judge went on to say: ``Indeed, Congress has expressly removed 
federal agency authority to regulate the activity, making its intent 
clear.'' The judge said Congress made it clear. The President wanted to 
ignore it. The court told President Obama definitely and definitively 
that he is the President of the United States, not the emperor of the 
United States.

  There have been six different court decisions in the past year, and 
all of them have been against the President. Even the Justices that he 
handpicked for the Supreme Court are refusing to play along with all of 
his power grab and his illegal overreach.
  The American people are no longer buying the President's excuses and 
his promises. Back in January the White House Chief of Staff promised 
that the Obama administration--and I was astonished when I saw this on 
television, saw a video of it, saw it again, listened to it again. The 
White House Chief of Staff promised that the Obama administration is 
going to in this final year--this eighth year of his administration--
have a year of audacious Executive action. There is going to be 
audacious Executive action in the President's last year in office.
  It is time for the President and his staff to rethink their plan. 
They should recognize that they do not have the legal support or the 
popular support for all of the regulations and all of their illegal 
action.
  The President is not an emperor, although he may think that he is. It 
is time for him to recognize this fact. It is time for the President of 
the United States to do the job he was elected to do and to follow and 
to obey the law of the land.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  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. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


               Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Bill

  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I rise again to talk about the heroin 
and prescription drug epidemic that has gripped our country and has 
affected every single State represented in this body. Sadly, it is a 
problem that is getting worse, not better. I say that having been in 
Dayton, OH, where sadly we had 15 people overdose in the space of the 
Fourth of July weekend in one that city in Ohio. This is happening all 
over our country, and it is an issue we have to address.
  The Federal Government has an important role to play. There is much 
more we can do. This body recognizes that. Back on March 10, the Senate 
passed something called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act--
CARA. CARA was on this floor for 2\1/2\ weeks, and there was some back 
and forth about the legislation, but by the end of the process--I think 
partly because Members were going home and hearing from their 
constituents about it--94 Senators in this body voted yes on it. One 
voted no, and it passed 94 to 1. Those kinds of votes almost never 
happen around here. It happened because people realize this is a crisis 
that we do need to address, and the bill that we came up with actually 
made sense because it was based on the best practices from around the 
country.
  So I have come to the floor every single week we have been in session 
since March 10 to talk about this issue, to urge my House colleagues to 
act, which they did, and over the past several weeks to urge that the 
House and Senate versions be brought together. That happened yesterday.
  Finally, from March 10 until now, going back and forth, we have what 
is called a conference committee report, meaning the House and Senate 
versions have been reconciled. There were compromises made and changes 
made, and we have one bill to go back to both the House and Senate for 
a vote and to the President for his signature and, most importantly, to 
get to our communities to begin to provide more help on prevention and 
education, recovery, treatment, helping law enforcement, and stopping 
overprescribing of drugs. It is a comprehensive approach to have the 
Federal Government be a better partner with State and local governments 
and nonprofits to be able to address this issue that unfortunately 
millions of families in America are now facing.
  I want to thank the Members of the conference committee. On the 
Senate side that would be Senators Grassley, Alexander, Hatch, 
Sessions, Leahy, Murray, and Wyden. I also want to thank all the House 
conferees. They did some good work. Each one of these Members I just 
mentioned has a real passion for this issue. They care about this 
issue.
  I want to thank my coauthor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode 
Island, because he did a pretty good job of talking to the conferees on 
his side of the aisle, as some of us did, including me, talking to 
conferees on our side of the aisle. Senator Whitehouse and I started 
this process 3 years ago. We had five conferences here in Washington, 
DC. We brought in experts from all around the country. So we had a real 
interest in getting this done, and I commend him and congratulate him 
for this result as well.

[[Page S4859]]

  I know that those who are in the advocate community--in other words, 
people who work in this field every day in prevention and treatment, 
law enforcement folks, and health care folks--are also very happy that 
this conference report has come together. Senator Whitehouse and I are 
very happy that the conference report kept to the substance of the 
Senate bill and frankly added some good elements that came out of the 
House legislative process. They had 18 separate bills, we had one 
comprehensive bill, and we had to bring them all together.
  There are now more than 230 groups from all around the country. A lot 
of them are national groups, and some are State groups that have come 
out in support of this conference report--in other words, supporting 
the final CARA product. Yesterday I met with about two dozen of these 
groups to talk about the process and how we got to where we are, to 
talk about the need to act quickly to get this into law because they 
are desperate. If you are a professional in the area of treatment and 
recovery, you want this help. You wanted it yesterday. We need it now.
  By the way, these are people we consulted with during these 3 years. 
They all came and participated in these five conferences. We also 
consulted with many others, including the Obama administration. They 
testified at these conferences. They also testified at the hearing we 
had at the Judiciary Committee. They were supportive of CARA in part 
because we took their input. We took everybody's good ideas, not 
Republican ideas and Democrat ideas but good ideas. We kept this not 
just bipartisan but nonpartisan. It would be nice if we keep it that 
way.
  I understand this is an election year and that some people may want 
to score a few political points. But having gone through this process 
in a nonpartisan way, having gotten this great vote out of the Senate 
and a strong vote in the House, and now having this conference report 
that has the right mix of good House and Senate substantive policies, I 
would hope to be able to make a difference in the fight. I would hope 
that we would not hear any more talk threatening to block this 
conference report at the last minute.
  Some of the concerns people are bringing up in the last minute are 
concerns that were never raised on the Senate floor. Some conferees did 
not sign the conference report because they said they wanted the 
mandatory spending that is in the President's budget be a part of the 
bill. That was never raised on the Senate floor. It was never raised 
even as an amendment in the appropriations process. It just took place 
over the past several weeks. So this is new.
  It doesn't mean we shouldn't have more spending. In fact, as some of 
you know, we had a vote on the floor on more spending. It was about 
emergency spending--not mandatory spending, which happens to be offset 
with cuts and other entitlement programs or tax increases, but 
emergency spending. I believe emergency spending is appropriate because 
I believe this is an emergency, and I voted for that emergency 
spending, but many of my colleagues did not. It did not pass.
  On the mandatory spending side, again, it is interesting because that 
was never brought up before. I for one would be for more spending, but 
I certainly wouldn't want to block the new spending that we have in 
CARA, which is a substantial increase in spending, because I am 
concerned about having more spending.
  Every day we are losing about 129 Americans. This is why there is a 
group out there called the CARA family coalition that came to 
Washington recently. There were 129 families representing that one 
family who every day loses somebody to heroin and prescription drug 
addiction through overdoses. Those families are waiting. Some of them 
are here this week because they are interested in seeing what happens.
  More Americans are now dying from drug overdoses than car accidents. 
It is the No. 1 cause of accidental death. In Akron, OH, 2 days ago, 
over a 10-hour span--this is one city, Akron, OH, 2 days ago--15 people 
overdosed on heroin. Two more people overdosed later the same day. It 
included a woman and her two daughters, all of whom were found 
unconscious. It included a 44-year-old man who died of an overdose. 
There have been 55 people just in Akron, OH, who have died from heroin 
overdoses this year. This means they will set a tragic record this year 
in terms of overdose deaths. The problem is getting worse, not better.
  On Tuesday in Dayton, OH, I met with law enforcement and treatment 
service providers. We announced a new program called the Front Door 
Initiative. Sheriff Phil Plummer was there. He told me that in one 
weekend in one town--again, in Dayton, OH--15 people died of overdoses. 
No one is immune from this. We have lost moms and dads, college 
students, grandmothers, celebrities, rich, poor, and people of every 
background to this epidemic. It knows no ZIP Code. It is in the inner 
city, it is in the suburbs, and it is in the rural areas. In the 117 
days that have passed since the Senate passed CARA on March 10, 
approximately 14,000 Americans have died of overdoses from prescription 
drugs and from heroin--14,000 Americans. It is time to act.

  Again, the good news is, we had a meeting yesterday of this 
conference committee between the House and Senate to finally pass this 
legislation, then to the House and Senate for a final vote, then 
getting it to the President, and most importantly out to our 
communities.
  By the way, the 14,000 is not the whole story, as tragic as that is, 
because of course there are millions of other casualties--fellow 
Americans who may have lost a job or their entire career, have broken 
relationships with their families and friends--and I hear this all the 
time back home in Ohio. I heard it over the weekend, when someone came 
up to me at a parade and said: I am one of those people who cares about 
this issue. Thank you for fighting on it. We have had this issue in my 
family, and it broke our family apart.
  People say the drugs become everything.
  We don't have time for partisan games. This is urgent. I think it is 
more urgent than any issue we are dealing with. Nine out of ten of 
those who are struggling with addiction are not getting the treatment 
they need. I think if this were the case of any other disease, it would 
be viewed as a national scandal. It is wrong and it is unacceptable.
  Addiction is a disease. One of the tenets of this whole legislation 
is to acknowledge that. With all of the specific improvements we have 
in terms of grants going out--for treatment, recovery, prevention 
education, helping police with Narcan, and so on--in a sense, the 
biggest thing for this legislation is to say: Let's get this stigma out 
of the way. Let's deal with this as a disease and get people into the 
treatment they need to get back on their feet.
  Again, a few months ago, I, along with others, worked with the Senate 
Appropriations Committee to be sure we did have additional funding to 
fully fund CARA, of course, and to get more funding into the pipeline 
for treatment, recovery, education, and prevention. When people talk 
about the funding issue, let me just be clear, we are increasing 
funding. Of course, the CARA bill itself increases funding in the 
authorization, but here is what the Appropriations Committees have 
done.
  The 2015 number was $41 million. This is for the Department of Health 
and Human Services, discretionary spending for heroin and opioid abuse. 
It went up to $136 million for this year, the year we are in now. That 
is a 237-percent increase. Next year, for 2017--when and if we can get 
CARA passed this week or next week, this is what would apply--we are 
seeing a 93-percent increase from the 237-percent increase. That is 
more funding. I wasn't great at math in school, but that is more 
funding. In fact, it is a 539-percent increase from 2015.
  For those who say we are not taking this seriously enough on the 
funding side--of course, I would like to do more, but we have to 
acknowledge that a lot has been done. In terms of the overall spending, 
not just the HHS spending, we have also seen increases. This would 
include Department of Justice and other grantmaking. We have seen an 
increase from 41 to 136 to 262 in the Senate appropriations. I am 
sorry. This is to add to the House version of the appropriations for 
2017. For next year, again in the Senate, we have a big increase that 
will start on October

[[Page S4860]]

1, if we are able to pass our appropriations bills--whether it is a CR 
or an omnibus or whatever form it takes--this is what the increase 
would be, at a minimum, I would hope, because that is what passed out 
of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
  This week, this is what the House reported passing. So as big as this 
increase is in the Senate--again, a 93-percent increase from this 
year's increase--it looks like, from what we have seen from reports 
from the House Appropriations Committees and in conversations with 
them, they are talking about a 393-percent increase in 1 year. Again, 
this is the House Appropriations Committee--a 1,500-percent increase 
over, again, 2015.
  For those who say there is not new spending being dedicated to this, 
of course there is. That is good.
  With regard to the total discretionary spending, this is not just HHS 
but all the different areas, including the Department of Justice and so 
on, which has also seen an increase. This is the Senate only. We don't 
have the House number yet, but for the Senate, we have gone from 220 to 
320 to 470, a 113-percent increase over last year's spending. We are 
seeing more spending, and that is good.
  By the way, this spending is connected to the CARA legislation. This 
increase was increased with the provisions that were in the CARA 
legislation to be sure that the two matched up.
  Finally, this is the increase we got in the conference committee for 
the amount that is authorized--not the actual spending but the amount 
that the Senate and the House would authorize for increased spending 
for new programs in CARA. Again, the Senate-passed bill, 94 to 1, had a 
$78 million-per-year increase. The conference report more than doubled 
that to $181 million.
  This is what is interesting to me. There are Senators on this floor 
who voted for CARA because it was the right thing to do--a nonpartisan 
exercise with a lot of bipartisan support, a 94-to-1 vote.
  All that has changed since then is we have it more than doubling the 
authorized amount of spending in CARA. With regard to the 
appropriations process--because we didn't have this appropriations in 
place then, the Senate committee had not acted, the subcommittee had 
not acted--in those 117 days since CARA was passed, we now see a 46-
percent increase overall in the discretionary spending. With regard to 
HHS, which is where most of the treatment money is, we see a 93-percent 
increase. For the House version, it looks to be an over 393-percent 
increase.

  All that has changed since CARA has passed with a 94-to-1 vote were 
these big increases in spending. Again, I voted for emergency spending 
on the floor. I think it is an emergency. I would go further, but for 
those who say they now cannot support this good legislation because of 
spending, it makes no sense. There is no way to argue that.
  There must be some other reason. I hope it is not politics. Again, 
that is what people hate about Washington. If partisanship is going to 
slip into this at the end of the process and keep people from getting 
the help they need and save lives, that would be a tragedy.
  These new spending programs will help, but we also have to point out 
that CARA is not just about spending, it is about authorizing better 
programs. There are lots of examples of that where we have done that in 
this body in other areas. I am the author of the Drug-Free Communities 
Act. It authorized spending to create anti-drug coalitions around the 
country. It has helped spawn the creation of 2000 coalitions. I founded 
one in my hometown of Cincinnati over 20 years ago. Another 2000 have 
benefited from that.
  That legislation did not have an appropriation--because it was an 
authorization, as CARA is--but it set up new programs, as CARA does. 
That program to date, the Drug-Free Communities Act, has spent $1.35 
billion focused on prevention and education on drugs.
  We have more prevention and education programs that I think are even 
an improvement in the CARA legislation, but that is an example of what 
an authorization bill does. In 2013, the Senate voted to reauthorize a 
bill called the Violence Against Women Act. I voted for it. Every 
single Democratic Member of Congress voted for it. It passed the Senate 
on a bipartisan basis, 78 to 22.
  The bill increased authorizations to $655 million annually and made 
policy changes, but it did not--and I repeat it did not--include the 
spending in the bill. It was an authorization bill. The spending bills 
come with the appropriations process. It didn't have mandatory 
spending. It didn't have immediate appropriations. It was an 
authorization bill. It was an incredibly important issue, violence 
against women--a priority. Yet we didn't see some of these same 
concerns raised. Nobody voted against the Violence Against Women Act 
because it didn't have appropriations attached to it. That just 
wouldn't have made sense, as it would not for any other authorization 
we pass around here. I know that wasn't an election year, but we voted 
for it. Then we fought for the funding as part of the appropriations 
process. We were successful in doing that, just as we will be 
successful in fighting for these appropriations, as we did this year, 
getting a big increase, a 237-percent increase, and as we will next 
year--as we see already. Thanks to our advocacy, those of us who were 
focused on the issue, we are getting the increases to cover these 
changes in CARA.
  Of course, all the funding in the world isn't going to make a dent in 
this issue if it is not spent the right way, and that is why you have 
the authorization bills like CARA because we actually say, not just for 
the new spending but even for the existing spending, let's spend it in 
a way that is evidence based, where we actually look at what is working 
and what is not working in treatment and in recovery.
  The number of people who relapse is shockingly high. The success rate 
is not what any of us would like it to be. Part of that is because some 
treatment and recovery programs work better than others. We want to be 
darn sure the tax dollars we are putting against this are being 
responsibly spent because we are good stewards of the taxpayers' 
dollars and because this crisis needs to be addressed.
  Again, this legislation is not just about more money, although it 
does authorize more money and that is good. It is also about changing 
the way we spend the money so it goes to evidence-based prevention, 
treatment, and recovery programs that have been proven to work. That is 
why we cannot let a debate about funding jeopardize the critical policy 
changes that CARA would make and because CARA would help ensure that 
these new resources would be spent on what we know works. That is what 
this 3-year process was about. That is what the conferences were about. 
That is what all the experts coming to Washington to tell us what works 
in the States was about--getting those best practices into this 
legislation.
  Again, the CARA legislation improves prevention by sponsoring a 
national awareness campaign about the dangers of abusing prescription 
opioids. Probably four out of five heroin addicts who overdose today 
started on prescription drug. That information needs to get out there. 
We need to explain this connection to people if we are going to get at 
this issue.
  The legislation also targets anti-drug coalitions in areas where the 
epidemic is worse. So where it is at its worst, there is more funding 
targeted to these anti-drug coalitions to focus on prevention and 
education. That is key to keep people out of the funnel of addiction, 
the grip of addiction. We should all be for that. That is in this 
legislation.
  It would increase access to treatment by increasing the availability 
of naloxone, which is a miracle drug. It can actually reverse an 
overdose while it is happening. It will train our first responders to 
be able to use Narcan or naloxone more effectively. These provisions 
will save lives, particularly when it is connected--when saving a life 
is connected to getting somebody into treatment.
  The conference agreement would also improve recovery for those who 
have been treated for addiction. It will build recovery communities 
like the ones at colleges and universities--perhaps at the State of the 
Presiding Officer. We have one we are very proud of at Ohio State 
University.
  These recovery communities will give the peer support that is 
necessary to follow through on addiction treatment over the long term. 
We know that

[[Page S4861]]

works. That is one of the keys, not just the treatment but the longer 
term recovery to keep people heading in the right direction.
  I think people in your State, people in Ohio, certainly understand 
the urgency of this problem because everywhere I go, whether it is in 
the cities, the suburbs, or the rural areas, people ask me about 
it. And they ask me why we aren't doing more, why we are not acting on 
this.

  Two weeks ago in Southwest Ohio, in my hometown of Cincinnati, a 28-
year-old was arrested after a young man in the Cincinnati area who 
bought heroin from him was found dead of an overdose. A 17-year-old 
teenager was found dead of an overdose. That is what is happening on 
our streets today.
  A few days ago, a man from Canton, OH, was pulled over in Akron, in 
Northeast Ohio, for speeding. He had 13 pounds of heroin on him. By one 
measure, that is about $400,000 of heroin--enough for 20,000 
injections. If not for that apprehension, we would have had a lot more 
distribution of heroin and overdoses and potentially lives lost.
  In Madison County, in Central Ohio, police arrested 16 people for 
trafficking heroin. At one of the drug houses they went to, there was a 
5-year-old child. That is what is happening. According to the sheriff's 
office, a high percentage of property crimes in that county are 
directly tied to opioid addiction. Sheriff James Sabin says that out of 
all the problems facing law enforcement in Central Ohio, heroin is the 
No. 1 issue we are dealing with. That is what is happening.
  Ohioans know this is happening to their friends, their neighbors, and 
their family members. They understand the urgency of this crisis. That 
is why all over the Buckeye State people are taking action at the local 
level and at the State level. But they want the Federal Government to 
be a better partner in helping them do what they know has to be done to 
fight this epidemic.
  As I said, on Tuesday I was in Dayton. There have been over 400 
overdoses just this year in Dayton. By some measure, Dayton, OH, has 
been named the top big city in America for overdoses--not something we 
are proud of. These 400 overdoses are going to be helped by a new 
program that was just launched and announced on Tuesday--I was there 
for the announcement--called the Front Door Initiative. It will get 
treatment to those who have overdosed. Once they are clean, it will get 
them skill training, help them find a job, and teach them how to be 
better moms and dads. The notion is that instead of putting people into 
prison, get them into treatment. It is a diversion program that is 
going to be customized and personalized for the particular person's 
problems. Through looking at what works and what doesn't work, we have 
found that is an effective way to get people back on track.
  This innovation is happening in other places, too, around Ohio. 
Sheriff Tharp in Lucas County is doing some very innovative stuff--
again, connecting people whom they arrest with treatment. In my view, 
it is going to be more effective, more compassionate, and it will also 
save taxpayer dollars.
  I thank Sheriff Phil Plummer, the Cornerstone Project, and the entire 
Montgomery County Drug-Free Coalition in Dayton, OH, for their daily 
fight to get treatment to those who need it and help people get their 
lives back on track.
  The conference report that has just been voted out will help. It will 
help law enforcement agencies like those in Dayton and Lucas County and 
other places around Ohio find alternatives to incarceration.
  Ohioans are taking action, and they expect Congress to take 
appropriate action too. This is a crisis. They want the Federal 
Government to be a better partner. They have been patient.
  Let me just say respectfully that, in my view, this is not like every 
other issue we address here. And we address some very important issues, 
as we did yesterday on sanctuary cities, issues that relate to spending 
bills, but this is about saving lives and allowing people to achieve 
their God-given purpose in life by not getting off track and not being 
casualties of this addiction epidemic.
  I think this is urgent. And for those who might say ``Well, what hope 
is there? How can more money help?'' I will tell you, No. 1, it is 
money that will be wisely spent. That is how it will help. Secondly, if 
it is well spent, treatment can work and it does work. Recovery can 
work and it does work. There are so many stories I can tell because I 
have been at over a dozen treatment centers around Ohio and spoken to 
hundreds of recovering addicts and heard so many stories.
  Let me tell you one about Bethani Temple from Prospect, OH. When she 
was 18 years old, her dad died of cancer. To help her cope with her 
grief, she tried one of the pain killers he had been prescribed. He had 
pain medication for his cancer, and she was grieving, so she thought 
she would try one of these pain killers, and she became addicted to 
these pain killers. Soon they were too expensive and not as accessible 
as something else, which was heroin. Bethani became addicted to heroin. 
While she was addicted, she gave birth to a daughter who was dependent 
on opioids.
  By the way, there has been a 750-percent increase in babies born in 
Ohio in the last 12 years who are dependent on opioids. It is tragic.
  Bethani's boyfriend got into a car accident while he was high on 
heroin and he died. Bethani was eventually arrested. Fortunately, she 
was in an area of Ohio where, although she got arrested, they helped 
get her into treatment. They diverted her into treatment. She got help. 
Bethani was the very first graduate of the Marion Ohio Court family 
dependency treatment program. It is a drug court. We had a roundtable 
discussion in Marion with Bethani and others and got to see some other 
young women who have been able to benefit from that.
  Her daughter got treatment, too, by the way. Now they are both 
healthy--and not just healthy; Bethani is now a college graduate, she 
is now married with two kids, and she is now the coordinator of the 
same program that got her back on track and, as she would say, saved 
her. She is the coordinator there, and she is helping others get their 
lives back on track as she did. She is beating this because she got the 
right treatment for her, the right recovery program for her.
  Mr. President, this is personal for me. It is personal for all of 
us--it should be. I know too many people who have gotten caught up in 
this grip of addiction. I know too many families who have gone through 
what may be viewed by some as the ultimate grief, which is to have your 
child predecease you because that child got involved with prescription 
drugs, then heroin, and then overdosed.
  Two families I have gotten to know lost their children because when 
their children had their wisdom teeth taken out, they were given pain 
medication and they got addicted to the pills and then heroin. These 
were teenagers who had to have their wisdom teeth taken out. These 
families are waiting, but they need help, and we need to give it to 
them.
  I would urge my colleagues to set the politics aside. This is not a 
partisan issue. It hasn't been from the start. This is an issue of 
helping the people we represent.
  For all those people who voted for the legislation as it came 
through--94 to 1--remember, all that has changed is that there is more 
money in this bill now than there was before. Remember, in the 117 days 
since you voted for this legislation, over 10,000 Americans have died, 
including Americans in each of our States. Remember, there is an 
election every 2 years. There is always going to be politics. This 
needs to come above politics. We need to get this done, and we need to 
get it done now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, the Senate is presently on the verge 
of approving a measure that is supposedly a compromise to provide for 
GMO labeling. I want to express my thanks and respect for the principal 
authors of this legislation, my colleagues Senators Roberts and 
Stabenow. They have worked hard to forge this compromise.
  Unfortunately, this falls far short of what is necessary to really 
inform consumers, provide the essential facts they need to make 
informed and educated choices about what they want to eat and to have 
their families eat, what they want to put on their dinner table.

[[Page S4862]]

  Nothing is more fundamental or important than what we eat. It is 
essential to energy and the ability of our children to learn. It is 
important to our productivity as adults. People of all ages care about 
what they eat, and they care more than ever now because they know how 
important it is. They also know about the unwanted features of food 
that could impair their health.
  Not long ago, we as a body rejected a measure called the DARK Act, 
which stood for Deny Americans the Right to Know. Unfortunately, this 
legislation will continue to leave consumers in the dark about what 
they are eating. This new compromise is as misguided and anti-consumer 
as that bill was, even though it may seem better.
  The bill also betrays the desires of 90 percent of the American 
people who want clear, comprehensive, truthful, accurate information--
labeling they can understand and readily see when they shop in their 
supermarkets or grocery stores, labels that tell them whether there has 
been genetic engineering.
  Not only do 90 percent of the American people want it, but the people 
of Connecticut have spoken. My State adopted a law that requires it. 
That law will go into effect if 4 other States comprising 20 million 
people move ahead with the same legislation. It is not arbitrary. It is 
not dictatorial or draconian. It is simple, commonsense, effective 
legislation adopted by the legislature and signed by the Governor of my 
State.
  What probably offends me most about this legislation is that it 
overrides the will of the people of Connecticut, their determination 
that they want clear, comprehensive labeling on GMO products. When the 
Connecticut Legislature adopted its statute--and now as we are 
considering ours--the debate has never been about whether GMOs are safe 
or unsafe to consume. I will leave to the scientists--readily delegate 
to them those judgments about the science of GMOs. Nor is this a debate 
about whether we should have warning labels. The labeling on these 
packages would not be in any way a warning to consumers; it would be 
informational only. The debate here and the objective of this measure 
is simply to provide information as dispassionately and clearly and 
objectively as possible. That is the goal, and that is what the 
legislation I have cosponsored with my colleague Senator Merkley would 
achieve. That is what we have sought to do through the amendments we 
have offered to correct the deficiencies in this measure. Among those 
deficiencies is the lack of an adequate definition of 
``bioengineering.'' Right now, that definition fails to include many of 
the forms of GMOs that could be adopted.
  The deficiencies include the reliance on QR codes, which discriminate 
against people who don't have smartphones or are in areas not served by 
the Internet or go to shop in stores that don't have that service.
  It is also defective in a number of specific provisions, and I will 
cite just one more. In the provision that applies to additional 
disclosure options, the Secretary of Agriculture is directed by this 
legislation that when there is insufficient access to bioengineering 
disclosure through electronic or digital disclosure methods, he ``shall 
provide additional and comparable options to access the bioengineering 
disclosure.'' The Secretary of Agriculture will become responsible and 
accountable for the cost, the mechanical process, and all of the 
aspects of providing this disclosure when, in fact, electronic or 
digital disclosure methods available to manufacturers or retailers are 
insufficient. What will be the cost? What will be the obstacles? There 
has been no hearing that would indicate those facts.

  So what we have here is a failure of drafting and of process. In this 
sweeping so-called compromise, the laws of Connecticut will be 
decimated. My State will be stripped of robust, grassroots GMO labeling 
measures--including in Maine and Vermont--not only applying to food but 
also to seeds planted in the ground and information about whether they 
have been bioengineered. These deficiencies are fundamental to this 
legislation. I repeat, the issue here is not about warning and not 
about safety, although those topics are reasonable to debate. It is 
simply about the public's right to know.
  I have a basic faith in our markets in the United States and in our 
free enterprises that consumers will make smart judgments and wise 
choices if they have the information that enables them to do it. But 
only if they have that information.
  My question to the proponents of this bill is this: What do we have 
to fear by providing that kind of information that consumers need and 
want, and that 15,000 Connecticut citizens have written to me asking to 
defend, and that constituents of mine, such as Tara Cook-Littman, have 
shown is desperately and dramatically needed? Tara has said:

       Anything short of on package, clear labeling shows total 
     disregard for what it is like to be a mom shopping in a store 
     with her children. When I'm shopping, I need to get in and 
     out as fast as I possibly can. And, whether a product 
     contains GMOs is only one of the many things I am looking for 
     before making my purchasing decision. My son is allergic to 
     nuts so I always look at packages to make sure the item is 
     nut free. I like to know the calories, fat and sugar of an 
     item before I purchase it. I look at how many ingredients a 
     product has. All of that information I can get in seconds. I 
     pick up the item, I scan the box for the information I need 
     and keep moving. I should be able to do the same for GMOs. I 
     would never have the time to pull out my phone and scan the 
     packages or go to a website in order to get the simple 
     information I am looking for. Assuming I would have the time 
     or ability shows a total lack of understanding about shopping 
     in the real world. When shopping for a family of 5, my 
     shopping cart could end up having over 50 items. Having to 
     scan or look up items on a website is not feasible.

  I agree with Tara, and I agree with anyone who has shopped and has 
the same views. In a crowded grocery store at the end of the day or 
with a child, especially a young child, navigating these aisles is 
challenging enough. The last thing a parent has is spare time to take 
out their phone and scan every product before placing it in their cart, 
even assuming the store has the Internet service that would enable 
someone to do so, and even assuming that person has a smartphone.
  This proposal is simply not practical, logical, or fair to consumers. 
It is in fact anti-consumer. It is unacceptable as a consumer 
protection measure. Let's give States the freedom to protect their own 
people, as Connecticut has done. That is the reason I proposed an 
amendment that would restore the right of States to adopt such 
legislation, and make this legislation a floor rather than a ceiling 
that enables States to do more.
  I thank my colleagues, Senators Leahy and Sanders, as well as Senator 
Tester and others, who have championed this cause, and, most 
importantly, Senator Merkley, who has helped to lead this effort. I 
believe the concerns we have expressed are urgent and immediate. Even 
at this late hour, I urge my colleagues to reject this measure as it 
has been drafted now, and adopt these commonsense amendments that will 
improve it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.


                            Opioid Epidemic

  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I have been coming to the floor every 
week for quite some time talking about an epidemic that we all have to 
fight through, and that is the epidemic of opiates--drug abuse. This is 
prescription--legal--drug abuse. We have come to a crisis in our 
country. I think both Democrats and Republicans realize this. This is 
not a partisan issue. It doesn't pick sides. It doesn't choose whether 
you are rich or poor, what race you may be, what religion you may 
practice. It basically attacks everybody.
  In 2014, 18,893 people died due to prescription opiate overdose. That 
is an average of 51 people every day. We are talking about legal 
prescription drugs. These are made by pharmaceutical companies that we 
depend on to make products needed for quality of life. They are also 
approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Basically, the Food and 
Drug Administration is responsible for making sure the products we 
consume are safe. Then, they are prescribed to us by the most trusted 
person next to our family member, which is our doctor.
  So when we think about it, how could something that has been approved 
by so many reputable people and institutions do so much harm and then 
we not react to it? That is the hard thing I have to imagine. I can't 
say: You know what; I don't think it was anybody's intent, but it is 
what it is.

[[Page S4863]]

  We have a full-blown epidemic. Over 2,000 people have died since 
1999. We talk about Zika, and we talk about Ebola. We are concerned 
about all these horrific illnesses that can attack a human being, and 
we have one right in front of us that is a silent killer, and we are 
not doing anything about it.
  Sixteen percent more people died in 2014 than died in 2013. We have 
to take action to stop the epidemic, and it can only happen right here 
in the halls of Congress in the Senate and with our counterparts on the 
other side of this great Capitol of ours.
  Unfortunately, a major barrier those suffering opioid addicts face is 
insufficient access to substance abuse treatment. I spoke to my cousin, 
Michael Aloi, who is a Federal magistrate judge. He said: Joe, let me 
just tell you the sad scenario. I have to sentence many people for the 
wrong they have done and the crimes they have committed. I have never 
once had anyone stand and say: Judge, I'm sorry; you can't sentence 
them to a jail sentence because we have no more jails--no more jails.
  He said: I have never been turned down. We have always found a jail 
cell or a bed to imprison somebody. We have never lacked for that. But 
so many times I have tried to place a person in treatment whom I know 
needed treatment. Their family wanted it, and they wanted to change 
their life. And guess what I have been told: I am sorry, but we have no 
place to put them.
  If you are a parent, the only thing you can do--I know Nebraska is 
the same as West Virginia. Isn't it an awful situation where, in 
America, you have to hope that your child gets arrested and convicted, 
and maybe then they could be sentenced to drug court to maybe get a 
chance in life? It is a sad scenario in this great country of ours that 
we can't save this generation.
  It is of epidemic proportion from this standpoint. I don't think 
there is a person who I know of in my State or anyone I have ever met 
in my travels in America who doesn't know someone--in their immediate 
family, extended family, or close friend--who has not been affected by 
drug abuse. It is of epidemic proportion.
  I say it is a silent killer because we keep our mouths shut. We are 
afraid. If it is our child, we don't want anybody to know. It would be 
embarrassing. If it is our mother or father, if it is an aunt or uncle, 
brother or sister, we will take care of that. We don't want anybody to 
know about it. Guess what. We have a full-blown epidemic that is 
killing your brothers, your sisters, your children, your aunts and 
uncles and moms and dads, and we say: Why didn't we say something?
  So this is what we are dealing with, and this is something we intend 
to fight.
  I will give an example of how hard it is to get treatment. In 2014, 
in my beautiful State of West Virginia, 42,000 West Virginians--
including 4,000 children--sought treatment for illegal drug abuse but 
failed to receive it. The largest long-term facility in West Virginia 
with more than 100 beds is the Recovery Point of Huntington, one of the 
most successful places we have. It is run by recovering addicts. Every 
one of them is a recovering addict. They know exactly every excuse, 
every type of diversion that you will give them. They have had 
everything thrown at them. They know it all. This group has been the 
best at having success ratios in putting people back into productive 
lives. They only have 100 beds, and they have a 4-month to 6-month 
waiting list--unbelievable.
  In 2014, about 15,000 West Virginians received some form of drug or 
alcohol abuse treatment. That is 15,000 who received it. Guess what. 
There was another 60,000 who went untreated--60,000 with no treatment 
at all.
  Based on my conversation with police departments, I would say that 
all of us--all 100 Senators in this room, Democrats and Republicans--
can talk to their law enforcement, and I will assure you that they will 
tell you that at least 8 out of 10 of the calls they are called to for 
any type of disturbance, any type of criminal activity is caused by 
drugs. Almost 80 percent are drug driven. Then we say that we can't 
afford it so we don't find any money. We can't find the money to pay 
for treatment centers.
  I have a bill that is called the LifeBOAT Act. It is bipartisan. We 
hope it is bipartisan. We are asking for all the help we can get. Here 
is really what it does. It is truly designated to fund treatment 
centers. What we are asking for is one penny--one penny--per milligram 
of every opiate product produced and distributed in America. One penny 
per milligram. That one penny will give us $1.5 to $2 billion a year. 
Can you believe that--$1.5 to $2 billion from one penny per milligram? 
Imagine the enormity of what we are consuming. When we think of a 
country that is less than 5 percent of the world population that 
consumes anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of all opioid products produced 
in the world, how can we become so addicted? How are we so pain 
intolerant that we have to have these powerful, addictive drugs? What 
happened to us?
  With all that being said, we have to first of all treat addiction as 
an illness. I am as guilty as anybody in politics or in political life 
or making policy for any period of time--20 years or more. I am as 
guilty as they are, thinking, at first: If you are fooling with drugs, 
you are committing a crime; we will put you in jail. Guess what. We 
have filled the jails, and when they get out, they are no better off 
than when we put them in. They haven't been relieved of their 
addiction. They haven't been cured of their addiction. They haven't 
even been treated for their addiction. We just thought that by throwing 
them in a prison or in a jail cell, we would take care of it. We have 
come to our senses now and found out addiction is an illness. Any other 
illness you might have, you are going to find treatment for. There is 
treatment to take care of you if you are ill, whatever it may be. 
Sorry, but not for opiates, not for a drug addiction. We can't. We just 
don't have the money to do it.
  We charge a fee for cigarettes. We know cigarettes are dangerous to 
you. It is not healthy for you. It will kill you. We know that. It is 
put on the packs when you buy any tobacco products, and you pay a tax 
or a fee. Call it anything you want to call it, you pay. Alcohol--when 
you buy alcohol, you pay a fee, a tax, or anything else that you want 
to put to that. But, by golly, if we talk about: Oh, my goodness, we 
need one penny per milligram to start providing treatment for people 
who are addicted so we can put them back into productive life--I am not 
voting for any taxes. I can't vote for tax increases. I am not voting 
for any of these things. Can't you vote for a treatment for your child, 
for your grandchild, for your neighbor? Can't you save a society that 
we are losing? Can't you see that 8 out of 10 of our crimes are 
committed by people who are drug-induced?
  If you are concerned about the economy, if you are concerned about 
the well-being and welfare of this country, can't you do something 
responsible and not worry about going out and defending yourself--yes, 
I will be happy to tell you I voted for a penny. You want to call that 
a tax? I am pretty austere about that. When I was Governor, I always 
said I was very financially responsible, fiscally responsible, socially 
compassionate.
  This is just common sense. You have to find a way to fund it. That is 
what we have asked for. So the LifeBOAT Act is something I am hoping 
every one of my colleagues will take a good, hard look at. And don't 
look at it as a tax or a fee; look at it as a treatment plan that helps 
get Americans straight again. Help us get it back into production.
  We talked about the silent killer. This is a silent killer because no 
one talks about it. Guess what. Since I have been coming to the floor, 
people have been sending me letters. They said: Please, we want you to 
read our letter. I want you to know about my son, my child, my 
grandchild, my husband, my wife, my mother, my father.
  I am going to read Stephanie Sowell's story. Stephanie put her name 
to this, and she wanted me to read this for you. She says:

       I applaud and thank you for your efforts at helping those 
     with addiction.
       My son, Tommy Sowell, died of an accidental overdose of 
     heroin mixed with Fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl on February 
     13, 2016, at the age of 24. I am quite sure he did not know 
     the drug contained Fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl.
       He developed a hernia during 9th grade and had surgery, 
     after which they prescribed OxyContin.


[[Page S4864]]


  Knowing that it was addictive, knowing that it has been 
overprescribed and has caused many overdoses.

       I now believe this is where the story of his addiction 
     began. He did not want, nor choose, to be addicted. He held a 
     high GPA throughout school and graduated from South Harrison 
     High School. He willingly helped his dad in the hay field 
     from a young age every year. He loved his family. He wanted 
     and needed to work and be productive.
       He wanted to go to college from a young age but the lure of 
     the oil & gas field won out with its high pay. However, with 
     those jobs beginning to close in WV around 2014-2016, he 
     began to spiral down . . . with no job prospects to speak of 
     here, but not wanting to leave WV and his family, he instead 
     turned to more drugs to deal [with and] cope with feeling 
     lost and unproductive.
       His dad and I found him. He died alone, which makes me even 
     sadder to know.
       Tommy was a good boy, a wonderful son, and he lit up our 
     world with laughter and joy. He was loving, respectful, 
     kindhearted, and full of life and fun.
       I know in my heart he would have overcome this and gone on 
     to do wonderful things if he'd just had the chance. We are 
     heartbroken and will be forever heartbroken. Saturday, June 
     11th, would have been his 25th birthday.
       If this letter helps you in any way please feel free to use 
     it. It would bring a bit of peace to us to know that his 
     story will help others.

  This is a hidden secret. This is basically a hidden killer we are 
talking about. When you have Stephanie and the parents and grandparents 
willing to speak up and say: Put a face with it. Put a boy or young 
girl coming out of a neighborhood, whom we had high hopes for and who 
was snuffed out--this is what they want us to share. This is what they 
are asking us to take up and do--provide the treatment that can help 
save the lives of their children and the lives of a generation of 
Americans.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we are on the floor this afternoon with 
the issue of GMO foods--genetically modified organisms--before us. I 
don't want to talk about GMO foods in that space; I want to talk about 
a more specific genetically engineered species.
  I would like to speak this afternoon about genetically engineered 
salmon. I think it is important to acknowledge that this is separate 
from the larger GMO debate we have been engaged in on the floor. 
Genetically engineered animals are not crops. They are not something 
that grows in a field and stays stationary. A genetically engineered 
salmon is something that swims. It moves around. It is something 
entirely new. It is a new species--a new species designed specifically 
for human consumption.
  This is the first time the FDA has ever signed off on a genetically 
engineered new species designed for human consumption--the first time. 
I happen to think the FDA signoff was wrong, and I am going to continue 
to object to that because this species that potentially will be 
introduced into our markets, into our homes, and quite possibly into 
our ecosystems, contrary to what any environmental assessment may 
claim, is new. This is unprecedented.
  When we talk about a genetically engineered salmon--we have dubbed it 
a Frankenfish in Alaska because it is splicing DNA from one animal, an 
ocean pout, with DNA from another fish, a farmed fish, and inserting 
that into a Chinook salmon. We are doing a little bit of a science 
experiment here that concerns many of us.
  Having grown up in the State of Alaska, I know fish. I know the 
significance of a strong, healthy fishery. It is our No. 1 employer 
throughout the State of Alaska. Not only do we look to the strength of 
our fisheries for strong economies and good jobs, it is critical and it 
is integral to those who live a subsistence lifestyle. It is so much a 
part of who we are as Alaskans. Alaskans identify themselves with their 
salmon. Right now, people in Alaska are not necessarily talking about 
what is going on here in Washington, DC. They are wondering when the 
next run of Pinks is coming in. They are wondering what is happening on 
the Yukon and the Kuskokwim with the runs up there. When is the red run 
going to come in in full tilt? When is the dip netting going to be 
starting? It is all about our fish.
  We have been assured that if these genetically engineered salmon 
should be allowed out onto the market, that if this production moves 
forward, you don't need to worry, Alaska, about any escapement because 
we are going to make sure these don't get loose. Nice promise, but we 
know in this State that fish can get out of the pens. They escape from 
hatcheries. They can be accidentally released from where fish are 
grown. We take very seriously the issues that present themselves with 
the introduction of a new species that has the potential to wreak 
havoc, to do harm to our wild natural stocks.
  Again, whether it is escapement or the promise of ``Don't worry, 
these fish are going to be sterile; you are not ever going to have to 
worry about them interbreeding, breeding with your wild stocks. You are 
going to be safe, Alaska. You are going to be OK, Alaska,'' the folks I 
represent back home look at this and say ``No, we don't believe we have 
the assurances. We don't believe we have the certainty. We don't 
believe we have the standards that are necessary to provide for the 
protection of our wild stocks.''
  So I have made clear throughout the larger debate on GMOs that I have 
opposed this bill because contained within this broader debate of 
GMOs--we do nothing to make it clear that if genetically engineered 
salmon is to go forward as the FDA has said that it will, there needs 
to be clear and unequivocal labeling of this GE salmon. Contained 
within this broader bill, we do not have the clear requirement for 
labeling of GE salmon, while also preempting Alaska's labeling law.
  What we have been told is ``Don't worry, if these genetically 
engineered salmon are out on the market, those who are marketing these 
salmon can voluntarily label them.'' Let me ask you, who do you think 
is really going to voluntarily place a label on something that says 
``This is not the real thing. This is not your wild Alaska salmon; this 
is a genetically engineered species''?
  The reality is, we will not see the labeling that I as an Alaskan who 
is putting fish on the dinner table for my family would require and 
would want. We have been trying to work through this with the chairman 
and ranking member of the committee, trying to provide for what we 
believe are very sensible, reasonable fixes, and yet we are at a place 
where those accommodations have simply not been made.
  Let me assure you that Alaskans are very unified on this issue. We 
will not accept GE salmon or this Frankenfish being sold to us without 
clear labeling. Again, I for one am not going to feed my boys this 
fish. I use that term lightly because I am looking at it and this is 
not even like a fish. You are taking DNA from an ocean pout. What is an 
ocean pout? It is an eel. I usually am here with a big picture of an 
ugly eel. I figured you might be tired of looking at that picture by 
now, but apparently it is not getting through to people. When we talk 
about Frankenfish, this is no joke to Alaskans. It poses a serious 
threat to the livelihoods of our fishermen, and that is not something 
that I am willing to take a risk on, that I am willing to take a gamble 
on.
  Our fisheries in the State of Alaska are world-renowned for their 
high quality and their sustainability. The Alaska seafood industry 
supports more than 63,000 direct jobs and contributes over $4.6 billion 
to our State's economy. Nearly one in seven Alaskans is employed in our 
commercial seafood industry. It is a major part of the seafood economy. 
Commercial fishermen around the State harvested more than 265 million 
salmon this past year, including the wild Chinook salmon, Sockeye, 
Coho, Chums, and Pinks. It is all coming on right here, right now. I 
was in Naknek on Friday. Everyone is waiting for the Sockeye to hit. It 
is an incredibly important part of our State's economy, but it is more 
than just the economic benefit--the dollars that come to our State, the 
jobs it has created--it is the good, healthy stuff. Wild Alaska salmon 
has tremendous health benefits. It is a lean protein source of omega-3, 
B-6, B-12, niacin. It is good stuff. It is naturally good stuff.
  It is so good that there are over 1.5 million people who wrote in to 
the FDA and said: We oppose this genetically engineered salmon. They 
weighed in. What did the FDA do? They basically went the other way. 
They weren't listening. Many of the grocery stores

[[Page S4865]]

we frequent have said: You know what, if you are going to allow this 
out here, we are not going to sell this in our stores. They want to 
know that there is going to be a label on it. They want to know that 
they can tell their customers ``This is wild Alaska sustainable, the 
real thing; and this is not.'' A voluntary label does not cut it. 
Safeway, Kroger, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Target all announced 
they are not going to sell it. Despite this immense opposition, in 
November of last year, the FDA approved AquaBounty Technologies' 
application for its GE AquAdvantage salmon.
  I put ``salmon'' or ``fish'' in quotation marks because what we are 
doing is we are taking a transgenic Atlantic salmon egg, which has 
genes from this ocean pout, this eel, and combining it with the genes 
of a Chinook. The egg is meant to produce a fish that grows to full 
size in half the time as a normal Atlantic salmon. Again, they are 
ramping this up on steroids, if you will, to cause it to grow twice as 
fast.
  Under the FDA application, these eggs will be produced in Canada, so 
it is not as though we are getting any American jobs there, and then 
the smolt--although I don't even really want to use the term ``smolt'' 
because only part of this fish is real salmon--they are then going to 
ship this to Panama, where they will be raised in pens. Again, there 
are no U.S. jobs there. The FDA made no mandatory labeling requirement; 
instead, they made it voluntary. This bill we have in front of us, the 
larger GMO bill, does not create a clear labeling mandate, either, and 
that is the concern I have. That is why I fought to secure mandatory 
labeling requirements both before the approval of AquaBounty's 
application and since its approval.
  We have been making good headway on this issue over the time I have 
been here in Washington, but unfortunately the bill we have in front of 
us today will wipe out that work instead of using the legislative tools 
we have at our disposal to effectively and precisely amend this 
legislation in order to address the issue of GE salmon.
  I have offered up an amendment. It has been sponsored by Senators 
Sullivan, Cantwell, Murray, and Merkley. What it would do is require 
the FDA to create a new market name for GE salmon in order to remedy 
this flaw in the current bill. In other words, give the certainty to 
the consumer. If you are shopping in your grocery store, you will know 
whether what you buy for your family is the real thing or a genetically 
engineered fish.
  The amendment is essentially the same language that was adopted by 
voice vote during the Agriculture appropriations markup earlier this 
year. It is substantially similar to language that was adopted by voice 
in each of the previous 2 years. We have had this before us. We have 
seen it. You have seen it. Yet it is not included right now.
  For 3 years running, the Appropriations Committee has approved the 
labeling of GE salmon without debate. I think this amendment shouldn't 
be very controversial, but for some reason it apparently is. Apparently 
it has caused all kinds of issues, and I do not see why. I have offered 
multiple sensible solutions over the course of several months while 
this bill was working its way through the process, and I am here today 
to again push for consideration of what I believe is truly sensible and 
truly reasonable. It has been incorporated and adopted before. It makes 
sense for a host of different reasons, and it certainly makes sense for 
the people of Alaska.
  I am here today, as we talk about the broader GMO debate, to make 
sure colleagues understand that my opposition here is to anything that 
would mistakenly allow genetically engineered salmon into anyone's 
homes mislabeled as salmon. I will continue to demand that the voices 
of Alaskans and those who care deeply about this are heard.
  With that, I see other colleagues have joined me on the floor. I 
thank the Presiding Officer for his attention to this matter, and I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hoeven). The Senator from Indiana.


               Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Bill

  Mr. DONNELLY. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the bipartisan 
Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, also known as CARA, and the 
opioid abuse and heroin use epidemics. As I have said, I believe it 
will take all of us working together to address this public health 
crisis that is gripping Hoosier families and communities across Indiana 
and our country. We all have a role to play to address these 
epidemics--officials at the Federal, local, and State levels, as well 
as prescribers, pharmacists, law enforcement, first responders, and 
parents and families.
  This bipartisan CARA legislation would provide States and local 
communities with important tools to prevent and treat drug addiction 
and support individuals in recovery. It includes several provisions 
adapted from my bipartisan legislation that would enhance prescribing 
practices and raise public awareness. We were also successful in 
getting a provision included that would encourage first responder units 
to connect individuals who receive naloxone with treatment and other 
necessary services. This bill includes programs that will make a 
difference and should be enacted into law. It is also critically 
important that we fund these initiatives. CARA is an important step, 
but make no mistake, there is work left to do to ensure that our 
communities have the resources and funding to implement many of these 
important programs. We have a chance to do something meaningful and 
bipartisan that will help save lives. For every family and community in 
Indiana and across the Nation who has been devastated by the opioid 
abuse and heroin use epidemics, we must get legislation to the 
President to be signed into law.
  Mr. President, I also want to talk about another issue that is 
important to Hoosiers. Later today the Senate will vote in favor of 
final passage on a bill requiring the labeling of foods that contain 
genetically engineered materials. I have worked with colleagues for 
months on this issue. I know this is about much more than just words or 
symbols on a label; it is about ensuring we have confidence in the food 
we eat and feed our children. As a Hoosier, I also know this bill is 
about preserving a long and proud Indiana tradition of growing the food 
that feeds our communities and provides a safe and reliable food supply 
for the world.
  The labeling legislation before us is the result of our working 
together as Republicans and Democrats to achieve our shared objectives 
to provide consumers with access to accurate information about the food 
we eat and to do so in a way that does not mislead consumers into 
thinking their food is unsafe. When this bill is enacted into law, for 
the first time ever consumers across our country will have access to 
the information they want, and it will be easy to find. That 
information will also be delivered in a way that is fair, objective, 
and based on sound science.
  Today I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill for 
final passage, not because everyone got everything they wanted but 
because it is a good compromise that achieves our shared objectives. 
Labeling genetically engineered materials will be required so consumers 
everywhere will have access to the information. It will provide fair 
and objective information without stigmatizing foods that are 
completely safe, and it contains provisions based on an amendment that 
my good friend Senator Carper from Delaware and I introduced, which 
will require clear and direct access to information on bioengineering 
through multiple methods of disclosure. Consumers, farmers, and food 
producers have been looking to the Senate for leadership. After months 
of discussion, we have found a sensible proposal that will bring the 
right information into our homes and to grocery stores in a responsible 
way.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.


                               TRUST Act

  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, anybody who has been watching the news 
knows what has happened with the FBI investigation of former Secretary 
of State Hillary Clinton. I think that the FBI's press conference 
detailing the findings of the FBI's investigation has made it very 
clear that Secretary Clinton has proven she cannot be trusted in 
protecting this Nation's most sensitive secrets. That is the takeaway 
from the FBI Director's press conference just days ago. That is not 
opinion; that is the conclusion that can be derived and taken from the 
findings of a very intensive FBI investigation.

[[Page S4866]]

  There were details in press reports earlier today which indicated 
that classified information had perhaps been handled in an extremely 
careless way by members of the military, and maybe others, who were 
punished; however, FBI Director James Comey said he did not recommend 
punishment in the case of Secretary Clinton's mishandling of classified 
information, but in the other cases, he pointed out that there had been 
adverse consequences. We saw the news reports today that talked about 
security and administrative sanctions on those who violated the 
policies and laws of handling classified information. That is why 
Senator John Cornyn and I have introduced legislation to address this 
very serious abuse of handling and mishandling classified information.
  The bill we have introduced is called the TRUST Act because it makes 
sure that there are consequences for people who handle our classified 
and most important secrets in an extremely careless manner. The TRUST 
Act provides consequences for anyone who exercises extreme carelessness 
in handling classified information. Any clearances that Secretary 
Clinton holds ought to be revoked because of her mishandling of these 
secrets, and she should be denied access to classified material unless 
and until she has a legal right to such access by becoming President-
elect. In addition, those around the Secretary and the people to whom 
she emailed classified information--emails that were marked 
``classified'' in some cases--ought to lose their security clearances 
as well.
  Secretary Clinton has consistently misled the American people about 
her emails. Just look at the Associated Press report published 
yesterday. In a news conference in March of 2015, Secretary Clinton 
said: ``I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. 
There is no classified material.'' That is not true.
  In an NBC interview on July 16, Secretary Clinton said: ``I never 
received or sent any material that was marked classified.'' That is not 
true.
  During a news conference in March of 2015, Secretary Clinton said: 
``I responded right away and provided all of my emails that could 
possibly be work related'' to the State Department. That is not true.
  In March of 2015, Secretary Clinton said: The server was ``guarded by 
the Secret Service, and there were no security breaches.'' As we can 
see through the FBI Director's statement, that most likely is also 
untrue.
  Time and again, Secretary Clinton has not told the truth to the 
American people, and there should be consequences related to these 
actions, especially when her recklessness relates to the most sensitive 
classified information this country has.
  Even President Bill Clinton noted the immense harm that results from 
dangerous actions like those outlined by the FBI Director. In Executive 
Order 12968, President Clinton said: ``The unauthorized disclosure of 
information classified in the national interest can cause irreparable 
damage to national security and loss of human life.''
  Secretary Clinton is an intelligent person. She knew this information 
was classified, and some of it was even marked ``classified.'' The FBI 
Director himself has said that even if it is not marked ``classified,'' 
but you know it is classified, you should be aware of it. If you have 
the potential to carry forward and disclose classified information, 
then you shouldn't send it over an unsecured server, as Secretary 
Clinton did hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
  The New York Times reported today that based on the words and 
comments, which you can parse from the FBI Director's statements just a 
couple of days ago, you can basically tell that Clinton's unsecured 
server was very likely hacked by foreign actors who ``were far too 
skilled to leave evidence of their work.'' That is why Secretary 
Clinton's security clearance ought to be revoked, and she should be 
denied access to classified material unless and until she has a legal 
right to such acts. That is also why those who acted with extreme 
carelessness around her--because they know better--should have their 
security clearances revoked. So they can't continue to perpetrate this 
kind of extreme recklessness, this kind of extreme carelessness, as 
identified by the Director of the FBI.

  The Clintons are the great escape artists, the Houdinis of American 
politics. They push the law to the very edge, and just when they get 
caught or trapped, they pull back. It is a double standard the American 
people are sick and tired of dealing with, and I hope my colleagues 
will support the TRUST Act to protect the integrity of Americans and 
American classified information.


                              North Korea

  Mr. President, I also rise to speak about the threat from North Korea 
and the role Congress has played in enacting tougher policies to 
counter the Kim Jong Un regime.
  On January 6, 2016, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, 
which is the third such test since President Obama has taken office.
  On February 7, North Korea conducted a satellite launch, which is 
essentially a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile but just 
disguised as something else, but the launch was certainly to test a 
missile that would, in their words, be capable of reaching the U.S. 
mainland.
  In response, on February 10, the Senate came together 96 to nothing 
to pass the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, a bill I 
authored in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee along with Senator 
Bob Menendez from New Jersey. Together, our legislation mandated--not 
simply authorized but mandated--sanctions against individuals who 
contribute to North Korea's nuclear program and proliferation 
activities, malicious cyber attacks, censorship of its citizens, and 
the regime's continued human rights abuses. The legislation imposed the 
first-ever mandatory sanctions on North Korea and the first-ever 
mandatory cyber sanctions as well.
  This legislation was a recognition that this administration's policy 
of strategic patience has been a strategic failure. As the Washington 
Post editorial board stated on February 8, just 2 days before our bill 
passed on the Senate floor, ``President Obama's policy since 2009 of 
strategic patience has failed. The policy has mostly consisted of 
ignoring North Korea while mildly cajoling China to pressure the 
regime.''
  I am pleased to see the administration is now shifting its failed 
policies by implementing key portions of the North Korea legislation 
that cracks down on the North Korean regime.
  On June 1, the Treasury Department designated North Korea as a 
jurisdiction of ``primary money laundering concern'' under section 311 
of the PATRIOT Act, which will further isolate North Korea from the 
international financial system.
  Yesterday, Treasury took another important step by designating Kim 
Jong Un and a number of his top officials as human rights abusers. This 
designation is long overdue and came about only because Congress 
mandated it, along with a human rights report that was delivered to 
Congress yesterday.
  We have known for years that this regime is one of the world's 
foremost abusers of human rights. The North Korean regime maintains a 
vast network of political prison camps, where as many as 200,000 men, 
women, and children are confined to atrocious living conditions and are 
tortured, maimed, and killed. I have spoken to defectors. I have had 
conversations with a defector from North Korea who served in the 
military there and who spoke to me of their torture in these prisons, 
of people who were put in jail because of their opposition to the Kim 
Jong Un regime, people who were tortured because of their defiance of 
Kim Jong Un's leadership.
  On February 7, 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Commission 
released a groundbreaking report detailing North Korea's horrendous 
record on human rights. The Commission found that North Korea's actions 
constituted a ``crime against humanity.''
  Now, we all are probably asking ourselves why it took so long for the 
administration to come to the same conclusion and then finally do 
something about it. Nonetheless, this week we finally are, but more 
remains to be done to send the strongest message we can to this regime, 
which poses a very serious threat to peace and stability throughout 
Asia, Eastern Asia, and the United States.
  Last month, we learned that North Korea successfully tested a missile 
that is capable of reaching U.S. bases

[[Page S4867]]

in Japan and the U.S. territory of Guam. According to open sources, the 
DPRK currently fields an estimated 700 short-range ballistic missiles, 
200 medium-range ballistic missiles, and 100 intermediate-range 
ballistic missiles.
  To counter this threat, we need to proactively work with South Korea 
to immediately station the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense--or 
THAAD--in South Korea. The regime's nuclear stockpile is growing fast. 
Most recently, nuclear exports have reported that North Korea may 
currently have as many as 20 nuclear warheads and has the potential to 
possess as many as 100 warheads within the next 5 years.
  Our military leaders have repeatedly stated that North Korea may have 
already developed the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead, to 
mount it onto their own intercontinental ballistic missile called the 
KN-08, and to ``shoot it at the homeland.''
  Pyongyang is also quickly developing its cyber capabilities as 
another dangerous tool of intimidation--an asymmetric threat to the 
United States--as demonstrated by the attack on the South Korean 
financial and communication systems in March of 2013 or the Sony 
Pictures hacking incident in November of 2014.
  According to a report that was released last year in 2015 by the 
Center for Strategic and International Studies, ``North Korea is 
emerging as a significant actor in cyberspace with both its military 
and clandestine organizations gaining the ability to conduct cyber 
operations.''
  According to the Heritage Foundation, ``Contrary to perceptions of 
North Korea as a technically backward nation, the regime has a very 
robust and active cyber warfare capability.''
  The Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea's intelligence agency, 
oversees 3,000 cyber warriors dedicated to attacking Pyongyang's 
enemies. Cyber experts have assessed that North Korea's electronic 
warfare capabilities were surpassed only by the United States and 
Russia.
  Last month, South Korean authorities uncovered a massive North Korean 
cyber attack into more than 140,000 computers at 160 South Korean firms 
and government agencies. Reports indicate that more than 40,000 
defense-related documents were stolen, including the blueprints for 
components of the 
F-15 fighter jet. Let me say that again. North Korea perpetrated a hack 
on South Korea that resulted in them obtaining the blueprints for the 
F-15 fighter jet.
  Yet, in light of these gross violations, the administration still has 
not acted to impose sanctions on North Korean cyber criminals as 
required by the law that passed 96 to 0 by this Senate. In fact, the 
administration is now nearly 2 months late in producing a report 
required under the bill which would name and shame those violators--the 
perpetrators of these cyber attacks.
  However, the crux of the success of the sanctions efforts rests with 
Beijing's compliance--with China. Nearly 90 percent of North Korea's 
trade is with China and, at least so far, we have seen only mixed 
evidence that Beijing is serious about changing its policies toward 
Pyongyang.
  While the administration needs to pursue constant and vigorous 
diplomatic efforts with Beijing, it should also not hesitate to impose 
penalties on Chinese entities as appropriate, if they are found in 
violation of the sanctions this Congress has passed.
  Finally, we also need to make sure we develop a strong trilateral 
alliance between South Korea and Japan, including enhanced defense and 
intelligence cooperation, to better deter the North Korean threat. We 
must never forget that more than 20 years ago, North Korea pledged to 
dismantle its nuclear program, and yet now we see a regime that has no 
respect for international agreements or international norms and is on 
the cusp of over 100 nuclear warheads. The United States should never 
again engage in negotiations with Pyongyang without imposing strict 
preconditions that North Korea take immediate steps to halt its nuclear 
program, to cease all military provocation, and to make credible steps 
to respecting the human rights of the people of North Korea.
  If the United States does not pursue increased actions against North 
Korea now, we will face a much greater threat in the future, and these 
threats will be immensely consequential to the safety and well-being of 
the U.S. homeland.
  Mr. President, I thank you, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                    Renewable Electricity Generation

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, we just celebrated Independence Day and 
rightfully so. It was a big break with the past, a big break with the 
whole history of the United States, up until July 4, 1776. Well, we 
have good news. There is another new dawn of independence which has 
arrived in the United States, and that independence is growing by the 
day.
  By ``independence,'' I am talking about how we generate electricity 
in the United States. For 100 years, we were dependent upon oil, upon 
natural gas, upon coal as our principal source of electricity in our 
country, combined with nuclear generation, plus some hydropower. But 
now, over the last 10 years, we have seen a true American revolution 
which has broken out.
  In 2015, in terms of new electrical generation in the United States, 
8,600 new megawatts of wind--again, people ask: What is a megawatt? 
Well, when we think of a big coal-burning or natural gas-burning or 
electrical-generating facility, that 8,600 of new wind megawatts would 
be about 8 or 10 new electrical generating plants using coal in our 
country.
  Last year: 7,500 new megawatts of solar in the United States. Seven 
to ten new coal-burning plants never had to be built because, instead, 
solar was used as the means of generating electricity in our country. 
And the importance of that is that all of those greenhouse gases that 
otherwise would have been emitted into the atmosphere from these new 
coal-burning facilities and these new gas-burning facilities in the 
United States will never happen because those plants never had to be 
built.
  Let's go back to 2015. In 2015, there was 6,000 new megawatts of 
natural gas electrical generation capacity in the United States that 
was installed, and all other electrical-generating new capacity in 
2015, including coal, was almost nonexistent, although there was some 
but a very small amount.
  Now, let's go to this little bit of history that I think is important 
for Senators and for the American people to hear about. Let me give my 
colleagues an idea as to what the profile of electrical generation in 
America looked like in 2005. In 2005, 50 percent of all electrical 
generation in America came from coal, 20 percent came from nuclear, 
which is about the same as it is today; natural gas was 19 percent; 
hydropower, 5 percent, and that is about the same as today; oil, 3 
percent, and that is pretty much down to zero in the United States 
today, but wind and solar combined were less than one-half of 1 percent 
of all electrical generation in the United States in 2005. We had gone 
through the entire energy history of the United States, and that was 
the best we could do--one-half of 1 percent wind and solar.
  Again, the tax breaks weren't there for wind and solar. They were 
there for natural gas and coal and oil and nuclear, but they were not 
there for wind and solar. Then policies in America began to level the 
playing field so wind and solar could compete. So, now, by the time we 
reach 2015, coal is now down to only 33 percent of all electricity 
generated in the United States, natural gas is up from 19 percent, up 
to 33 percent from 2005. Again, natural gas emits half of the 
greenhouse gases that coal does when it is generating electricity in 
our country. Nuclear stays the same at about 20 percent, hydropower is 
still 5 or 6 percent, but here is the interesting thing. All of a 
sudden, solar plus wind is up to 6 percent of all electrical generation 
over the last 10 years. But the interesting story is how fast wind and 
solar are now being added to the total mix of electricity in our 
country.

  Now let's go to 2016, this year. What is on the books for this year 
is 14,500 megawatts of solar, 9,000 new megawatts of wind, natural gas 
at about 8,800 megawatts, and nothing else coming in. There is no coal 
on the books planned for this year in the United States of America. You 
can see that solar and wind are on track to produce two to three times 
as much new electricity as natural gas, and there is no other 
competition.

[[Page S4868]]

  This revolution is taking place at a very rapid rate in our country. 
In the year 2016, we now have 310,000 jobs in the solar industry, and 
we have 88,000 jobs in the wind industry. In other words, we have 
400,000 people working in the wind and solar industry in the United 
States of America. It is on pace to have 600,000 people working in 
those two industries by the year 2020. We are down to 65,000 coal 
miners in America as this new set of technologies continues to expand, 
continues to lower in price, and we are seeing a dramatic change in 
this energy mix.
  Let me add that the United States is not alone in this. Last year in 
2015, across the whole planet, one-half of all new electrical 
generating capacity came from renewable energy--one-half for the whole 
planet in new electrical generation capacity.
  Something else that is important for people to understand is that 
even as we make these incredible investments in the new energy 
technologies across the planet, for the last 2 years global energy-
related carbon emissions actually stayed flat while the global economy 
grew. That defies conventional economic wisdom that there is a direct 
correlation between how much you pollute and how much you can generate 
in new gross domestic product. That has now been broken. It is an 
anomaly. Gross domestic product continues to go up, and emissions are 
flat. That means we are now on a pathway where, as more and more 
renewables, more hybrid automobiles, electric automobiles, and more new 
technologies come on line, we are going to see a decline in greenhouse 
gases even as the global economy continues to grow. How are we going to 
accomplish it? Well, we have to have tax policies on the books that 
give incentives to these new technologies.
  You don't have to worry about the oil industry. They have been taken 
care of for 100 years. What we do have to look at, however, is the Koch 
brothers and others who have a business stake in oil, gas, and coal and 
continue to argue against giving the same kinds of tax breaks to the 
renewable energy industry that have always been given to the fossil 
fuel industry.
  In fact, when we were debating last year whether or not we were going 
to have extensions of tax breaks for wind and solar, the Koch brothers 
wrote a letter to every Member of the House and Senate saying that 
would be destructive to the free market system. They forgot to write 
this letter with regard to subsidies for the oil industry, the coal 
industry, the natural gas industry, and the nuclear industry. All of a 
sudden, when there is a new technology that does not pollute and which 
they are not heavily invested in, they decide that the purity of this 
system requires that we not have tax breaks for the new energy 
technology. How do they handle that? They just make sure that they have 
all kinds of interests out there that try to then make the argument, an 
economic or climate argument, that those same kinds of tax breaks the 
other industries have always received are not justifiable, aren't 
needed for the solar and wind industry.
  So this is an incredible revolution. Whereas in 2005 only 79 total 
new solar megawatts were installed in the country, this year 14,500 
megawatts are going to be installed.
  This is a delayed revolution. The regulatory policy, the tax policy 
did not in fact give a break to the new energy technology, but the 
truth is that we are now on a pathway to having a revolution where, by 
the year 2030, we could easily have 400,000 megawatts of wind and solar 
and other renewables installed in the United States. By the end of next 
year, we will have 150,000 megawatts. After 70 years, the nuclear 
industry has 100,000 megawatts.
  Every time I use that term ``megawatts,'' I know that it can get 
confusing, but just understand the bottom line is that wind and solar 
are coming as new additions to the grid at an average of 1 to 1.5 
percent to the total every single year. So by the year 2030, it could 
be between 25 percent and 30 percent of all electrical generation at 
the current peak at which it is being deployed in our country.
  So that level playing field that we have been working hard to create 
and which we have to continue to work hard to create is making a huge 
difference. The Clean Power Plan which President Obama has propounded 
will drive it more. The 30 States that have renewable electricity 
standards as a goal in their States make a difference, but also the 
policies we create here for tax breaks for these new industries will 
make a huge difference toward meeting our goals.
  From my perspective, we have a chance to have America with 100 
percent renewable electricity by the year 2050 in our country. We have 
a chance to change the whole path of the planet in terms of how they 
look at these energy technologies.
  No one had these small cell phones in their pockets in 1993--no one. 
They were big bricks that cost 50 cents a minute, but we began to have 
a revolution, and 7 or 8 years ago everyone decided to have one in 
their pocket. It was unimaginable to a preceding generation of 
Americans.
  How about this: 800 million Africans who did not have wireless 
devices in the year 2000 now have them in their pockets. We can deploy 
wind and solar to Africa, Asia, South America, and all around the 
planet if we make the same kind of investment in developing these new 
technologies.
  Recently, in Germany, for 1 day the whole country was renewable. In 
Portugal, for 4 days the entire country was generating renewable 
electricity. I believe that we can and should do 100 percent generation 
by the year 2050, and that is why I will be introducing a resolution in 
the Senate, expressing the sense of this body that the United States 
should commit to generating 100 percent of all of our electricity from 
renewables by the year 2050, and I urge my colleagues to support me in 
this effort. This will provide massive job creation, reduction in 
greenhouse gases, world leadership, and an ability to avoid the worst, 
most catastrophic consequences of climate change to our planet.
  Last year was the warmest year ever recorded. This year is the 
warmest year ever recorded. It keeps getting more and more dangerous, 
but the answer, the solution, is within our grasp.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


          Sanctuary Cities and Zika Virus Funding Legislation

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to begin by briefly commending the 
efforts of the junior Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Toomey, for his 
work and leadership in crafting legislation that the Senate considered 
yesterday that would protect families from the dangers of so-called 
sanctuary cities.
  Sanctuary cities are, frankly, not particularly appropriately named 
because these are cities that have made a conscious decision to refuse 
to cooperate with the lawful orders of Federal authorities, especially 
when it comes to removal of criminal illegal aliens. The bottom line is 
that the failure to cooperate with Federal law and Federal officials is 
a danger to the very communities that many of our colleagues who 
blocked this legislation claim they want to protect.
  In other words, these so-called sanctuary city policies--they refuse 
to cooperate with the removal of people who demonstrate their 
untrustworthiness by committing crime after crime after crime. They are 
a threat to the entire community, including legal immigrants and 
native-born Americans.
  Senator Toomey's legislation would have cut Federal funding to these 
cities and counties that refused to follow the rule of law and would 
empower local authorities to crack down on those who commit crimes on 
our soil.
  Unfortunately, once again, our Democratic colleagues filibustered 
this commonsense proposal, in addition to another bill that would have 
helped protect our communities. It is beginning to appear they are 
making a habit out of blocking bills that this country needs.
  Let me give another example. Just last week, our Democratic 
colleagues were faced with a choice. They had made the point over and 
over again that the Zika virus--which is being carried by a mosquito 
native to our southern parts of the United States--was at our Nation's 
doorstep. They said that in order to combat this threat, we need 
additional funding for mosquito eradication, developing clinical trials 
for a vaccine, and advising and informing and educating the public on 
what

[[Page S4869]]

to do to protect themselves. We know. We saw a picture on the Senate 
floor of the devastating impact this virus has on a woman who is 
pregnant and her child. Indeed, last week we had a picture of a child 
with microcephaly--the shrunken skull and brain--and a description of 
the tragic circumstances they will face in that child's short life.
  We could avoid all of that if our Senate colleagues would just quit 
playing politics. They really had a choice: to protect pregnant women 
and their babies from the devastating impact of a birth defect caused 
by the Zika virus or to play partisan politics. What did they choose? 
Well, it is pretty obvious they chose to play partisan politics.
  Every Senate Democrat voted for $1.1 billion in Zika funding. What 
did the joint conference committee in the House and Senate produce that 
they filibustered? Zika funding for $1.1 billion. In other words, they 
voted against the very amount of money that they had previously voted 
for.
  They need to quit gambling with the health of Americans. That is what 
Senator Reid, the Democratic leader, said when he urged us to fund the 
President's request for Zika funding. But then they abruptly did an 
about-face when presented with a bill at the same funding level that 
they themselves had previously voted on. So who is gambling now? Who is 
gambling now? Who is going to answer to the mother of a child born with 
a devastating birth defect and explain to them why they thought that 
politics was more important than actually coming up with prevention and 
coming up with a vaccine that actually would stop the threat of these 
dangerous and devastating birth defects?
  If the Democrats in the Senate want to gamble on the future health of 
the next generation, I want no part of it. Zika poses a real and 
immediate threat to our country, particularly in places like Texas 
where I come from. Ignoring the devastating impact of this virus is 
irresponsible and heartless.
  We will soon provide another opportunity for our Democratic 
colleagues to move forward with a bipartisan, bicameral funding bill 
that includes the needed resources to fight Zika here at home at the 
funding level that the Democrats in the Senate have previously 
supported. Our public health officials need to continue the good work 
they are doing to study the virus, contain it, and keep it from 
spreading here in the United States, and they need the financial 
resources to do it. It is just beyond comprehension why our Senate 
colleagues would continue to filibuster this important funding.
  Saying that the bill lacks sufficient funding to fight the virus is 
just plain ridiculous. That is what they have said. According to 
reports from just yesterday, administration officials estimate that 
they still have nearly half a billion dollars of unspent Ebola funds 
that could be put to use for combating Zika.
  So I would invite our Democratic colleagues to reconsider their 
previous decision to block this funding and consider the wide-ranging 
implications of their ``no'' vote from last week. I urge them to 
reconsider so we can get these funds into the hands of those who 
protect us and our children.


                               TRUST Act

  On another matter, Mr. President, yesterday I spoke on FBI Director 
Comey's announcement regarding Secretary Clinton's use of her personal 
email server. He called her and the staff who enabled her to use this 
private server to transmit classified information ``extremely 
careless.'' He made clear that their actions were egregious in the 
sense that they put classified information at risk that our Nation's 
enemies would love to have and use against us. In summary, he said they 
should have known better, which is pretty self-evident, and he said 
they put our country at risk.
  Even more devastating, his announcement on Tuesday proved that 
Secretary Clinton had been lying to the American people about her 
server from day one. From Director Comey's investigation, it is clear 
now that she did send and receive classified information, some at the 
very highest levels of classification. It is clear now that her server 
didn't provide adequate security, leaving sensitive information 
vulnerable to our Nation's adversaries. It is evident now that she 
didn't give the authorities full access to all of her work-related 
emails. Director Comey said the FBI uncovered several thousand more 
that she hadn't turned over.
  In a word, this is unacceptable. For somebody with so much experience 
in government--as First Lady, as a U.S. Senator, and then as Secretary 
of State--to gamble with our Nation's most important secrets is 
completely irresponsible. Unfortunately, it tends to reinforce the 
narrative Secretary Clinton herself has been responsible for writing, 
and that narrative is, when it comes to her activities, anything goes. 
The rules may apply to you and me, but they certainly don't apply to 
her. Unfortunately, she feels like she is above the law, and, as I 
said, the rules that apply to others don't apply to her. This is simply 
unacceptable.
  As Director Comey noted, people who engage in what Secretary Clinton 
did--the mishandling of classified information--are often at least held 
accountable through some security or administrative sanction, and that 
is if they don't get fired or put in prison for their misconduct.
  We have to do what we can here to hold her and her staff accountable. 
It is part of the oath we take to uphold the Constitution and the laws 
of the United States. No less than if we were an FBI agent or a Federal 
judge, as Senators we have to take that oath, and it is the right thing 
to do.
  It is very important that we send a firm message that this sort of 
behavior is unacceptable, and hopefully we will deter others from 
taking the same risks to our Nation's national security and the lives 
of the men and women who serve in our intelligence services if we send 
a message that this is not acceptable and there will be a price to be 
paid.
  In light of the FBI Director's announcement, I have introduced 
legislation with the junior Senator from Colorado, Mr. Gardner, to do 
just that. This legislation is called the TRUST Act. It would revoke 
the security clearance of anyone found to have demonstrated extreme 
carelessness in the handling of classified information and would keep 
them from receiving a clearance in the future so they couldn't do this 
again. It would also clarify existing law so that everyone understands 
that extreme carelessness, which the FBI found in the case of Secretary 
Clinton and her staff, basically becomes the legal standard whether or 
not you think it constituted gross negligence.
  There are many people whose legal opinion I respect, such as former 
Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who said that extreme carelessness 
and gross negligence are basically the same thing.
  I heard Mayor Giuliani--former distinguished U.S. prosecutor, former 
third person in line at the Justice department--say there is plenty of 
evidence with which to prosecute somebody who has done the things and 
said the things Secretary Clinton and her staff have. But we understand 
that Director Comey has taken that off the table, and now Attorney 
General Lynch has said we are going to close the file. But the truth 
is, Secretary Clinton and her staff have proven that they are either 
unable or disinterested in keeping safe highly sensitive classified 
information, and they have gone so far as to cover up this scandal at 
every step along the way. I think that should mean at minimum that they 
forfeit the privilege of having a security clearance so at least they 
cannot do this again.
  Yesterday, Director Comey made clear that Secretary Clinton and her 
staff should have known better. That seems self-evident with somebody 
with long experience in the Federal Government--from First Lady, to 
U.S. Senator, to Secretary of State. With the highest level of security 
clearance in the Federal Government, she should have known better.
  She was reckless and careless in the way she handled this classified 
information. Add to that the frightening implications of this sensitive 
information getting into the hands of our adversaries, such as the 
Russians or Chinese intelligence agencies, and any reasonable person 
would come to one conclusion: They have to be held accountable and 
there has to be some penalty for putting our Nation's security at risk.
  I will continue to call on the Department of Justice to be open and 
transparent. Director Comey said that he

[[Page S4870]]

thought that the circumstances of this case, while they didn't rise to 
the level sufficient for indictment, that transparency was very 
important. That is why he made the really unprecedented announcement 
that he did, which frankly far exceeded his authority as the 
investigative agency, where he said no reasonable prosecutor would have 
sought an indictment in this case.
  But I hope the Justice Department responds to the letter which I sent 
on today's date wherein I asked him to release any unclassified 
information as it relates to this scandal. The American taxpayers 
deserve to see all of the investigation--which cost the American 
taxpayers millions of dollars--especially in light of the fact that 
there will be no criminal prosecution, according to Director Comey's 
recommendation and according to the decision of the Justice Department 
to close the case yesterday.
  I urge Secretary Clinton to ask the Justice Department to release the 
FBI reports and any transcript of her 3\1/2\-hour long interview as 
well because I think the American people deserve it. I suspect what we 
would find is that Secretary Clinton's lawyers said: No matter what you 
have done before, don't lie to the FBI in that 3\1/2\-hour interview, 
because that lawyer and Secretary Clinton would know that no matter 
what you have done or haven't done before, if you actually lie to an 
FBI agent, that is an indictable and prosecutable crime in and of 
itself. So I have reasonable confidence that she did finally come clean 
and tell the truth to the FBI in that interview. Now, the only right 
thing to do, in the interests of the sort of transparency Director 
Comey talked about--since there can be no prosecution and no 
indictment, the only right thing to do in the interests of transparency 
and public accountability is for that transcript of the 3\1/2\-hour-
long interview to be released to the American people so they can judge 
for themselves. I believe the American people deserve at least that.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
my letter of July 7 to the Honorable Loretta Lynch.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                     Washington, DC, July 7, 2016.
     Hon. Loretta Lynch,
     Attorney General, United States Department of Justice, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Attorney General Lynch: On July 5, 2016, the Director 
     of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced in a 
     lengthy press conference that the FBI was officially 
     recommending that ``no charges are appropriate'' in the 
     investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 
     use of a personal email system during her time as Secretary 
     of State. The Director made this recommendation even though 
     the FBI found that ``there is evidence of potential 
     violations of the statutes regarding the handling of 
     classified information,'' including evidence that ``Secretary 
     Clinton or her colleagues . . . were extremely careless in 
     their handling of very sensitive, highly classified 
     information.'' In doing so, the Director specifically pointed 
     to seven e-mail chains concerning Top Secret information, 
     some of which apparently ``bore markings indicating the 
     presence of classified information.'' These conclusions, 
     among others, directly contradict many of the public 
     statements that former-Secretary Clinton and her supporters 
     have made in defense of her unprecedented conduct. 
     Nevertheless, yesterday you accepted his recommendation and, 
     in a terse, two-sentence statement, announced that ``the 
     thorough, year-long investigation'' was now closed and that 
     ``no charges [would] be brought against any individuals 
     within the scope of the investigation.''
       The Director's lengthy public statement was ``unusual,'' as 
     he noted, but he asserted that ``the American people deserve 
     . . . details in a case of intense public interest,'' and 
     that ``given the importance of the matter, . . . unusual 
     transparency is in order.'' His public statement, he said, 
     was an effort to ``assure the American people . . . that this 
     investigation was done competently, honestly, and 
     independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought 
     to bear.'' In contrast, your public announcement contained no 
     similar disclosures or otherwise provided the American people 
     with much needed transparency and information about that 
     investigation.
       For more than a year, I also have noted that this case was 
     incredibly important and highly unusual and that the American 
     people deserved a fair and impartial investigation. That's 
     why I called for you to appoint a Special Counsel in this 
     matter. The need for a Special Counsel, the appointment of 
     which would give the American people greater transparency and 
     assurance of independence, was underscored after you decided 
     to meet privately with Secretary Clinton's husband just days 
     before the Director's public announcement and the conclusion 
     of that investigation. I will continue to press for this 
     appointment because I believe it is the best and most 
     appropriate way for the American people to have faith in the 
     administration of justice in this case.
       In the meantime, and because the Director and I both agree 
     about the importance of this matter and the need for unusual 
     transparency, I call on the Department of Justice to 
     immediately release the FBI's report and any transcript of 
     the FBI's three-and-a-half hour interview of former-Secretary 
     Clinton on July 2. As you know, such interview reports often 
     become public when a criminal investigation results in a 
     criminal prosecution. And the Federal Rules of Criminal 
     Procedure require the Department of Justice to provide an 
     interview report directly to a criminal defendant. Of course, 
     here you have declined to appoint a Special Counsel and the 
     FBI has decided that ``no reasonable prosecutor would bring 
     such a case,'' so the American people will not enjoy the same 
     transparency that they have come to expect from their own 
     government. But as the Director said, ``only facts matter,'' 
     and the American people deserve the facts underlying former-
     Secretary Clinton's FBI interview to evaluate the Department 
     of Justice's conclusions and the public statements that 
     former-Secretary Clinton and her supporters have made 
     regarding her use of a personal email system and her 
     egregious handling of classified information.
           Sincerely,
                                                      John Cornyn,
                                            United States Senator.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


             Unanimous Consent Requests--Executive Calendar

  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, ``judicial emergency'' is an official term 
that refers to a vacancy in our court system for a court that carries a 
heavy caseload or a vacancy that has remained open for an extended 
period of time.
  In the United States, we now have dozens of judicial emergencies. Why 
are there so many judicial emergencies? Why are there so many vacancies 
in courts that have heavy caseloads? Why are there so many long-term 
vacancies? Well, the reason is simple. When it comes to confirming 
judges, Senate Republicans simply refuse to do their jobs. Their view 
seems to be very simple. If government isn't working for them or their 
rich friends or their rightwing allies, then they will simply refuse to 
let it work for anyone.
  Yesterday the Senate confirmed one judge, Brian Martinotti, to sit on 
the district court in New Jersey--one judge, one noncontroversial 
nominee for a noncontroversial job who had been waiting for a vote for 
over a year. The Republicans who control the Senate seem to think that 
is reasonable. It is not.
  Sixteen district court judges have been investigated, gone through 
hearings, been voted out of committee, and are pending on the Senate 
floor right now. One circuit court nominee is also on this list for a 
vacancy that has remained vacant for more than 6 years. Fourteen States 
have judges on this list. About half of these nominees have been 
sitting for nearly a year or more.
  These courts do an enormous amount of work. Their work is not 
political. Democratic and Republican Senators have worked with the 
President to select these nominees to fill vacancies on these courts, 
and those nominees deserve votes. Right now, there is no indication 
that they are going to get votes. And in a few days, the Republicans 
who control the Senate are planning to pack up their things and shut 
down the Senate for most of the rest of the year. This is ridiculous. 
No other workers in America get to walk off the job before the job is 
done, and the same should be true for the U.S. Congress. We shouldn't 
leave until we do our work.
  The Senate can act right now to confirm these 17 nominations, all of 
whom have bipartisan support.
  Mr. President, I rise today to ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: 
Calendar Nos. 359, 362, 363, 364, 459, 460, 461, 508, 569, 570, 571, 
572, 573, 597, 598, 599, and 600; that the Senate proceed to vote 
without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order 
listed; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions 
be in order to the nominations; that any related statements be printed 
in the

[[Page S4871]]

Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's 
action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as the 
Senator knows, we have a process for considering district judges. It is 
the prerogative of the majority to set those votes. Frankly, in light 
of the process we do have, as the Senator knows, this is not the 
appropriate process.
  But I do agree with her on one thing: that the Senate ought to do its 
job. One of the things we could do, which has received broad 
bipartisan, bicameral support, is to fund the efforts to combat the 
Zika virus, which creates the devastating birth defects we talked about 
a moment ago. While I object to this request, there are things we ought 
to be able to do before we break.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, we do not have a process that is working.
  The Nation faces a judicial vacancy crisis. Ten percent of the 
district court judgeships in this country are empty. We face nearly 
twice as many judicial emergencies as President Bush faced in 2008 or 
President Clinton faced in 2000. Cases are piling up, and courts are 
starved for help. The Supreme Court of the United States sits 
paralyzed, unable to deal with some of its most challenging cases. But 
the majority whip is going to pack up and go home, leaving 18 
judgeships vacant because--well, that is the process?
  This isn't a game. There is no scoreboard. You don't get to ignore a 
national crisis because you care more about scoring political points 
than keeping government functioning.
  President Obama's job is to nominate judges to fill vacancies, and 
the Republicans' job here is to lead us to confirm those judges to fill 
those vacancies. Do your job.
  So if you won't confirm all of the pending judicial nominees who have 
been voted out of committee and are currently waiting on the Senate 
floor, then before you leave town for months, let's at least confirm 
the 13 judges on that list who were nominated last year to fill 
district court vacancies.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
executive session to consider the following 13 nominations: Calendar 
Nos. 359, 362, 363, 364, 459, 460, 461, 508, 569, 570, 571, 572, and 
573; that the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or 
debate on the nominations in the order listed; that the motions to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to 
the nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; 
that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and 
the Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, if I am not 
mistaken, we are trying to deal with a biotechnology issue when it 
comes to our agriculture supply, which was voted out of the Committee 
on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and I know the Senator from 
Kansas, the distinguished chairman of the committee, would like to get 
to it but for the diversions caused by these sorts of requests which 
the Senator knows will be objected to.
  If the Senator is really concerned about doing our job and taking 
care of our Nation's business, then she ought to join me in voting for 
the $1.1 billion in funding for the Zika virus, which is a national 
health care emergency, and certainly the pictures I have had here 
previously demonstrate the consequences of a failure to deal with this 
Zika virus. Unfortunately, this baby has suffered a devastating birth 
defect known as microcephaly--literally a shrunken skull and brain--and 
is condemned to an uncertain future in life, not to mention the 
consequences on the family.
  I would implore the Senator from Massachusetts, let's get to work 
doing this, which I believe the Senator has already voted for the $1.1 
billion in funding. Yet when we brought this up, all we got were 
objections and stonewalling from our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle. Frankly, I don't understand it. It is a terrible mistake, 
and I don't want one baby in America to suffer this sort of birth 
defect because we dithered and did not do our duty when it came to 
providing adequate funding to combat the Zika virus.
  This is something we should take care of before we break on July 15. 
We can fight about judges any other time, but this is a true public 
health emergency. And how Senators can come down here and try to hijack 
the floor to talk about something else when we are ignoring the very 
work before us in dealing with this biotechnology agriculture issue or 
dealing with something even more pressing, such as avoiding birth 
defects and these sorts of devastating consequences as a result of this 
Zika virus, I do not understand.
  I do not understand the Senator's priorities, and I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, this has been going on now for a year and 
a half. The Republicans have delayed and delayed and delayed and 
delayed until we face dozens of judicial emergencies. There is always 
an excuse not to take up even noncontroversial appointments.
  We can't get the 17 who were voted out of committee and are currently 
pending on the floor, we can't get the 13 who were nominated in 2015 so 
how about this deal. There are four district court nominees who have 
been waiting around for a year or more. They are from Tennessee, New 
Jersey, New York, and California.
  When President Reagan was in office, almost no uncontroversial 
nominees took longer than 100 days to confirm. Let us at least give 
these four nominees who have been waiting nearly a year or more for 
their vote. The Senate can do this, it can do it quickly, and we will 
be done. There is bipartisan support for every one of them.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
executive session to consider the following four nominations: Calendar 
Nos. 359, 362, 363, and 364; that the Senate proceed to vote without 
intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed; 
that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the 
table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be 
in order to the nominations; that any related statements be printed in 
the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's 
action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we can have 
the debate about judges, but I think we ought to first take care of the 
business before us that the Senate voted to proceed to, which is to 
deal with the legislation to avoid the State-by-State requirement for 
labeling our food products, which has been agreed to by the Senator 
from Michigan, the ranking member of the Committee on Agriculture, 
Nutrition, and Forestry, together with the chairman of the committee, 
the Senator from Kansas.
  We ought to be taking care of that, and we also ought to be taking 
care of this. This is urgent. How people can think we need to deal with 
these lists of judges and sort of hijack the agenda and distract us 
from our work on preventing these sort of birth defects is, frankly, a 
misplacement of priorities.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, it would take no time to confirm these 
judges. These are all people who have been examined by the committee, 
who have passed out of committee, who are pending on the floor, and who 
have bipartisan support. These are judges from Tennessee, New Jersey, 
New York, California, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Utah, 
Massachusetts, Maryland, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Indiana. 
Fourteen States will be left without vital judges because of the 
Republican blockade.
  At a certain point, reasonable people have to ask: Why are 
Republicans actually doing this? Is it so that if Donald

[[Page S4872]]

Trump is elected President, he will be able to nominate more judges? 
What in this world has Donald Trump ever said or done that makes the 
majority whip so enthusiastic about his judicial appointments? Is it 
Trump's enlightened views on the judiciary? Donald Trump is a guy who 
just a few weeks ago race-baited a Federal judge--attacked a judge who 
spent years defending America from the terrors of murderers and drug 
traffickers. Trump attacked him simply because the judge refuses to 
bend the law to suit Trump's personal financial interests.
  And where do you think Donald Trump got the idea he can attack the 
integrity of Federal judges with impunity? He got it from you--from the 
Republicans in the Senate and their decision to turn scores of highly 
qualified, nonpartisan judicial appointees into political footballs.
  Talk is cheap. If Republicans really do disagree with Donald Trump's 
approach to judges, then do something about it. Confirm these highly 
qualified noncontroversial judges. Do it now before shutting off the 
lights and leaving town.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to address the issue just 
raised by the Senator from Massachusetts and responded to by the 
Senator from Texas.
  The Senator from Massachusetts carefully avoided mentioning the 
obvious. This is the same Republican majority that will not fill the 
vacancy on the Supreme Court. For the first moment in the history of 
the United States--in the history of the United States--we have a 
Presidential nominee sent to fill the vacancy of the late Justice 
Scalia, and the Republicans in the Senate refuse to give him a hearing 
or a vote. That has never--underline the word ``never''--happened in 
the history of the United States of America. When we say do your job, 
it starts at the highest Court and goes straight down to every Federal 
court in America.
  I sit on the Judiciary Committee, and what I think is particularly 
galling, troubling, and worrisome is that each one of these nominees 
has been carefully vetted by the Department of Justice, by the FBI, by 
Republican staffers--everyone imaginable--culling through every aspect 
of their life to see if they are truly worthy of being a lifetime 
appointee to the Federal bench, and they all passed the test. They were 
all voted out of committee, and they all languish on the floor of the 
Senate for the very reason the Senator mentioned.
  The Senator from Texas and many others are lying awake at night 
praying for the moment when President Donald Trump can pick Federal 
judges in America. Unless Judge Judy is coming out of retirement, I 
have no idea where he is going to turn to find judicial talent, but I 
will tell you, we have judicial talent, approved by Democrats and 
Republicans, languishing on this calendar at great personal expense.
  I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for raising this issue.


                           Zika Virus Funding

  Mr. President, I would like to also comment on the Zika virus and the 
threat to the United States. You bet it is serious. We have seen the 
photographs that have been displayed here of the children who are born 
with serious birth defects because of the Zika virus.
  It is so serious the President of the United States notified this 
Senate in February--February of this year--to act immediately on 
providing $1.9 billion--$1.9 billion--to protect as many people as 
possible from the spread of this virus and the terrible effects it has. 
The President asked for $1.9 billion not only to deal with the 
mosquitoes and the infection but also to develop a vaccine so we can 
liberate America from the concern of this virus showing up next year 
and the year after.
  So there was a $1.9 billion request in February. To date--to date--
the Republican leadership in the House and Senate have failed to 
produce the $1.9 billion that was suggested by the President.
  We had a compromise number of $1.1 billion that was approved by the 
Senate with a strong bipartisan vote almost a month ago. I think there 
were 87 Senators who voted for it because we all understand it is a 
public health emergency. Well, in our bicameral system, the bill then 
went over to the House of Representatives. What happened next tells the 
story of what is wrong with the Republican-controlled Senate today. 
They took our bipartisan bill for $1.1 billion to fight the Zika virus, 
they put it in a conference committee, they held a meeting but didn't 
invite any Democrats, and they then came up with a bill that provided 
$1.1 billion, but listen to how they did it.
  They took money away from fighting the Ebola virus in Africa, which 
we feared several years ago would spread to the United States and still 
is a threat to Africa and to many other people. They took the public 
health money to fight the Ebola virus and said: We will transfer it 
over, and you can fight the Zika virus.
  Apparently, the Republicans believe we can only fight one public 
health challenge at a time. We don't have time for Ebola. We are going 
to move to Zika. The Centers for Disease Control--the preeminent agency 
in the world when it comes to fighting public health disasters--has 
warned us don't do this. We are still worried about the spread of Ebola 
and the danger of it.
  But they didn't stop with that. They didn't stop with taking the 
Ebola money and putting it into the Zika virus. They then turned around 
and larded the bill up with every political ornament they could think 
of that would captivate the hearts of the rightwing. Listen to what 
they included in the bill. They included a provision that cut $500 
million from the Veterans' Administration to process veterans' claims.
  Have you heard of that issue? I sure have back in Illinois. Our 
veterans wait way too long to get the disability payments they deserve 
for having served our country. The Republicans cut $500 million from 
that effort, but they weren't finished. They then turned around and 
said: We want to make an exemption in the Clean Water Act so certain 
chemicals can be sprayed around water supplies. What has that got to do 
with this and why do we need to do it at this moment? It is one thing 
they have been longing for. The third thing they turned around and did, 
after they cut the money from the VA and after they made this provision 
to change what the EPA can regulate and, as I mentioned earlier, took 
the money out of Ebola--they then moved on to say: We know that women 
across America will be concerned about family planning because of the 
threat of the Zika virus so they put language in the bill prohibiting 
Planned Parenthood from providing family planning to those who are 
concerned about the spread of the Zika virus. They just can't stay away 
from Planned Parenthood, and they included it.
  And while you might think that was enough to make this the most 
controversial political bill to move from the House, they had one more 
trick up their sleeve--a provision to allow the display of Confederate 
flags in our veterans cemeteries--Confederate flags. Why?
  Why would you take an important bill dealing with a public health 
crisis and lard it up with all of these miserable provisions that just 
excite the hearts of some political rightwingers? They did it because 
they were hoping we would stop the funding for the Zika virus. It is 
stopped now waiting for a clean bill. They know the President will 
never sign this bill as written.
  If we would go back to the original bipartisan bill passed in the 
Senate, we would certainly get approval for it. That is why, I answer 
the Senator from Texas, we wait for the day when we can get back to 
bipartisanship on this important public health threat.

  I see there are others seeking the floor. The last point I will make 
is that we are going to vote in a short period of time on this GMO 
legislation. I have a lengthy statement that I will put in the Record 
about my position, but I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record an article from the New England Journal of Medicine. This is an 
August 20, 2015, article from the New England Journal of Medicine 
entitled ``GMOs, Herbicides, and Public Health.'' It makes the point 
very directly that there has been no credible scientific evidence that 
GMO foods pose any danger to consumers who consume them. But there is a 
credible concern about the use of chemicals in the

[[Page S4873]]

production of these GMO products and how they are being larded on these 
fields, creating real concern about the ultimate impact on public 
health by these agricultural chemicals and the runoff.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  GMOs, Herbicides, and Public Health

      (By Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., and Charles Benbrook, Ph.D.)

       Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not high on most 
     physicians' worry lists. If we think at all about 
     biotechnology, most of us probably focus on direct threats to 
     human health, such as prospects for converting pathogens to 
     biologic weapons or the implications of new technologies for 
     editing the human germline. But while those debates simmer, 
     the application of biotechnology to agriculture has been 
     rapid and aggressive. The vast majority of the corn and 
     soybeans grown in the United States are now genetically 
     engineered. Foods produced from GM crops have become 
     ubiquitous. And unlike regulatory bodies in 64 other 
     countries, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not 
     require labeling of GM foods.
       Two recent developments are dramatically changing the GMO 
     landscape. First, there have been sharp increases in the 
     amounts and numbers of chemical herbicides applied to GM 
     crops, and still further increases--the largest in a 
     generation--are scheduled to occur in the next few years. 
     Second, the International Agency for Research on Cancer 
     (IARC) has classified glyphosate, the herbicide most widely 
     used on GM crops, as a ``probable human carcinogen'' and 
     classified a second herbicide, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid 
     (2,4-D), as a ``possible human carcinogen.''
       The application of genetic engineering to agriculture 
     builds on the ancient practice of selective breeding. But 
     unlike traditional selective breeding, genetic engineering 
     vastly expands the range of traits that can be moved into 
     plants and enables breeders to import DNA from virtually 
     anywhere in the biosphere. Depending on the traits selected, 
     genetically engineered crops can increase yields, thrive when 
     irrigated with salty water, or produce fruits and vegetables 
     resistant to mold and rot.
       The National Academy of Sciences has twice reviewed the 
     safety of GM crops--in 2000 and 2004. Those reviews, which 
     focused almost entirely on the genetic aspects of 
     biotechnology, concluded that GM crops pose no unique hazards 
     to human health. They noted that genetic transformation has 
     the potential to produce unanticipated allergens or toxins 
     and might alter the nutritional quality of food. Both reports 
     recommended development of new risk-assessment tools and 
     postmarketing surveillance. Those recommendations have 
     largely gone unheeded.
       Herbicide resistance is the main characteristic that the 
     biotechnology industry has chosen to introduce into plants. 
     Corn and soybeans with genetically engineered tolerance to 
     glyphosate (Roundup) were first introduced in the mid-1990s. 
     These ``Roundup-Read ``crops now account for more than 90% of 
     the corn and soybeans planted in the United States. Their 
     advantage, especially in the first years after introduction, 
     is that they greatly simplify weed management. Farmers can 
     spray herbicide both before and during the growing season, 
     leaving their crops unharmed.
       But widespread adoption of herbicide-resistant crops has 
     led to overreliance on herbicides and, in particular, on 
     glyphosate. In the United States, glyphosate use has 
     increased by a factor of more than 250--from 0.4 million kg 
     in 1974 to 113 million kg in 2014. Global use has increased 
     by a factor of more than 10. Not surprisingly, glyphosate-
     resistant weeds have emerged and are found today on nearly 
     100 million acres in 36 states. Fields must now be treated 
     with multiple herbicides, including 2,4-D, a component of the 
     Agent Orange defoliant used in the Vietnam War.
       The first of the two developments that raise fresh concerns 
     about the safety of GM crops is a 2014 decision by the 
     Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to approve Enlist Duo, 
     a new combination herbicide comprising glyphosate plus 2,4-D. 
     Enlist Duo was formulated to combat herbicide resistance. It 
     will be marketed in tandem with newly approved seeds 
     genetically engineered to resist glyphosate, 2,4-D, and 
     multiple other herbicides. The EPA anticipates that a 3-to-7-
     fold increase in 2,4-D use will result.
       In our view, the science and the risk assessment supporting 
     the Enlist Duo decision are flawed. The science consisted 
     solely of toxicologic studies commissioned by the herbicide 
     manufacturers in the 1980s and 1990s and never published, not 
     an uncommon practice in U.S. pesticide regulation. These 
     studies predated current knowledge of low-dose, endocrine-
     mediated, and epigenetic effects and were not designed to 
     detect them. The risk assessment gave little consideration to 
     potential health effects in infants and children, thus 
     contravening federal pesticide law. It failed to consider 
     ecologic impact, such as effects on the monarch butterfly and 
     other pollinators. It considered only pure glyphosate, 
     despite studies showing that formulated glyphosate that 
     contains surfactants and adjuvants is more toxic than the 
     pure compound.
       The second new development is the determination by the IARC 
     in 2015 that glyphosate is a ``probable human carcinogen'' 
     and 2,4-D a ``possible human carcinogen.'' These 
     classifications were based on comprehensive assessments of 
     the toxicologic and epidemiologic literature that linked both 
     herbicides to dose-related increases in malignant tumors at 
     multiple anatomical sites in animals and linked glyphosate to 
     an increased incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in humans.
       These developments suggest that GM foods and the herbicides 
     applied to them may pose hazards to human health that were 
     not examined in previous assessments. We believe that the 
     time has therefore come to thoroughly reconsider all aspects 
     of the safety of plant biotechnology. The National Academy of 
     Sciences has convened a new committee to reassess the social, 
     economic, environmental, and human health effects of GM 
     crops. This development is welcome, but the committee's 
     report is not expected until at least 2016.
       In the meantime, we offer two recommendations. First, we 
     believe the EPA should delay implementation of its decision 
     to permit use of Enlist Duo. This decision was made in haste. 
     It was based on poorly designed and outdated studies and on 
     an incomplete assessment of human exposure and environmental 
     effects. It would have benefited from deeper consideration of 
     independently funded studies published in the peer-reviewed 
     literature. And it preceded the recent IARC determinations on 
     glyphosate and 2,4-D. Second, the National Toxicology Program 
     should urgently assess the toxicology of pure glyphosate, 
     formulated glyphosate, and mixtures of glyphosate and other 
     herbicides.
       Finally, we believe the time has come to revisit the United 
     States' reluctance to label GM foods. Labeling will deliver 
     multiple benefits. It is essential for tracking emergence of 
     novel food allergies and assessing effects of chemical 
     herbicides applied to GM crops. It would respect the wishes 
     of a growing number of consumers who insist they have a right 
     to know what foods they are buying and how they were 
     produced. And the argument that there is nothing new about 
     genetic rearrangement misses the point that GM crops are now 
     the agricultural products most heavily treated with 
     herbicides and that two of these herbicides may pose risks of 
     cancer. We hope, in light of this new information, that the 
     FDA will reconsider labeling of GM foods and couple it with 
     adequately funded, long-term postmarketing surveillance.

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in 
the Record an article from the Campbell Soup Company.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From Campbell Soup Company, July 6, 2016]

         Campbell Announces Support for Mandatory GMO Labeling

       Camden, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 7, 2016--Campbell Soup 
     Company (NYSE: CPB) today announced its support for the 
     enactment of federal legislation to establish a single 
     mandatory labeling standard for foods derived from 
     genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
       This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full 
     release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/
 20160107006458/en/.
       Campbell believes it is necessary for the federal 
     government to provide a national standard for labeling 
     requirements to better inform consumers about this issue. The 
     company will advocate for federal legislation that would 
     require all foods and beverages regulated by the Food and 
     Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of 
     Agriculture (USDA) to be clearly and simply labeled for GMOs. 
     Campbell is also supportive of a national standard for non-
     GMO claims made on food packaging.
       As a result of its decision to support mandatory national 
     GMO labeling, Campbell will withdraw from all efforts led by 
     coalitions and groups opposing such measures.
       The company continues to oppose a patchwork of state-by-
     state labeling laws, which it believes are incomplete, 
     impractical and create unnecessary confusion for consumers.
       Campbell is optimistic a federal solution can be 
     established in a reasonable amount of time if all the 
     interested stakeholders cooperate. However, if that is not 
     the case, Campbell is prepared to label all of its U.S. 
     products for the presence of ingredients that were derived 
     from GMOs, not just those required by pending legislation in 
     Vermont. The company would seek guidance from the FDA and 
     approval by USDA.
       Campbell continues to recognize that GMOs are safe, as the 
     science indicates that foods derived from crops grown using 
     genetically modified seeds are not nutritionally different 
     from other foods. The company also believes technology will 
     play a crucial role in feeding the world.
       Campbell has been engaged in the conversation about GMO 
     labeling for several years and has taken action to provide 
     consumers with more information about how its products are 
     made, including the presence of GMOs, through efforts like 
     its website www.whatsinmyfood.com. With 92 percent of 
     Americans supporting the labeling of GMO foods, Campbell 
     believes now is the time for the federal government to act 
     quickly to implement a federal solution.
       More information about the rationale behind Campbell's 
     decision can be found on Campbell's newsroom.

[[Page S4874]]

     
                                  ____
       Campbell's--Why We Support Mandatory National GMO Labeling

                           (By Campbell Team)

       Today the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/
08/business/a-new-fact-on-the-foodlabel.html) wrote about 
     Campbell's decision to support mandatory national labeling of 
     products that may contain genetically modified organisms 
     (GMOs).
       Campbell's President and CEO Denise Morrison shared the 
     message below with our employees about the reasons behind our 
     decision.


           Taking a Major Step Forward as We Live Our Purpose

       At Campbell, we are unleashing the power of our Purpose, 
     Real food that matters for life's moments. Our Purpose calls 
     for us to acknowledge that consumers appreciate what goes 
     into our food, and why--so they can feel good about the 
     choices they make, for themselves and their loved ones.
       Today, consistent with our Purpose, we announced our 
     support for mandatory national labeling of products that may 
     contain genetically modified organisms (GMO) and proposed 
     that the federal government provide a national standard for 
     non-GMO claims made on food packaging.
       We are operating with a ``Consumer First'' mindset. We put 
     the consumer at the center of everything we do. That's how 
     we've built trust for nearly 150 years. We have always 
     believed that consumers have the right to know what's in 
     their food. GMO has evolved to be a top consumer food issue 
     reaching a critical mass of 92% of consumers in favor of 
     putting it on the label.
       In addition, we have declared our intention to set the 
     standard for transparency in the food industry. We have been 
     openly discussing our ingredients, including those derived 
     from GMO crops, through our WhatsinmyFood.com website. We are 
     supporting digital disclosure through the Grocery 
     Manufacturers Association's (GMA) SmartLabelTM 
     program. We have announced the removal of artificial colors 
     and flavors from our products. However, our support of 
     mandatory federal GMO labeling sets a new bar for 
     transparency.
       There is currently no federal regulation requiring labeling 
     that informs consumers about the presence of GMOs in their 
     food. In the absence of federal action, many states--from 
     California to Maine--have attempted to address this issue. 
     Campbell has opposed this state-by-state patchwork approach, 
     and has worked with GMA to defeat several state ballot 
     initiatives. Put simply, although we believe that consumers 
     have the right to know what's in their food, we also believe 
     that a state-by-state piecemeal approach is incomplete, 
     impractical and costly to implement for food makers. More 
     importantly, it's confusing to consumers.
       Most recently, Vermont passed legislation that will require 
     food companies including Campbell to label products regulated 
     by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that may contain 
     ingredients made from GMO crops. However, this legislation 
     does not include products with meat or poultry, because they 
     are regulated by United States Department of Agriculture 
     (USDA). Under Vermont law, SpaghettiO's original variety, 
     guided by the FDA, will be labeled for the presence of GMOs, 
     but SpaghettiO's meatballs, guided by the USDA, will not. Yet 
     these two varieties sit next to each other on a store shelf, 
     which is bound to create consumer confusion.
       Campbell has been actively involved in trying to resolve 
     this issue since 2011. We've worked with GMA, legislators and 
     regulators to forge a national voluntary solution. We've 
     engaged a variety of stakeholders, from lawmakers to 
     activists. I've personally made multiple trips to Capitol 
     Hill to meet with elected officials. Despite these efforts, 
     Congress has not been able to resolve this issue. We now 
     believe that proposing a mandatory national solution is 
     necessary. Printing a clear and simple statement on the label 
     is the best solution for consumers and for Campbell.
       I want to stress that we're in no way disputing the science 
     behind GMOs or their safety. The overwhelming weight of 
     scientific evidence indicates that GMOs are safe and that 
     foods derived from crops using genetically modified seeds are 
     not nutritionally different from other foods. In America, 
     many farmers who grow canola, corn, soybean and sugar beets 
     choose to use genetically modified seeds and have done so for 
     nearly twenty years. More than 90% of these four crops in 
     America are currently grown using GMO seeds. It takes an 
     average of thirteen years to get a GMO seed approved by the 
     government for safety. Ingredients derived from these crops 
     are in many of our products. We also believe that GMOs and 
     other technologies will play a crucial role in feeding the 
     world.
       We will continue to be a member of GMA and will participate 
     in food industry initiatives that align with our Purpose and 
     business goals. However, as a result of the change in our 
     position on GMO labeling, Campbell is withdrawing from all 
     efforts led by groups opposing mandatory GMO labeling 
     legislation, including those led by GMA.
       The New York Times reported on our decision, and we issued 
     a press release. I encourage you to read both. We recognize 
     that this announcement may spark discussion. It's difficult 
     to predict the exact nature of the ensuing commentary, but I 
     suspect it will be a mixed bag. What I do know is that our 
     decision was guided by our Purpose; rooted in our consumer-
     first mindset; and driven by our commitment to transparency--
     to be open and honest about our food. I truly believe it is 
     the right thing to do for consumers and for our business.
           Best,
                                                  Denise Morrison,
                                                President and CEO.

  Mr. DURBIN. Campbell Soup Company has decided they are going to face 
this issue squarely, honestly, and waste no time. It is a company that 
I trust. I can't imagine how many cans of Campbell's soup we have 
consumed in my household throughout my life.
  They said: It is time to be honest with consumers. We will tell them. 
We will tell them pointblank on the label so they can read whether or 
not there are GMO products contained in the soup. Then they can make 
the decision as to whether they want to buy it.
  I wish that were the outcome of this entire debate, but it is not.
  The third point I want to make is it is mindless for us to allow 
individual States like Vermont to decide the labeling standards for 
national companies. It makes no sense. We cannot allow it to occur.
  The last point I will make is this: One of the provisions in this 
bill I think is embarrassing, and it is a provision which I cannot 
support. We give three options to food companies when it comes to 
labeling for GMOs. First, declare right on the label, just as Campbell 
Soup Company does, if GMO products are included. Second, use a symbol 
created by the Department of Agriculture which we can educate the 
public on that can really signal as to whether this product has GMO 
products. The third is the one that troubles me--something called a YRL 
or URL. I may have that designation wrong, but it is that kind of 
scrambled screen you see that you can't read but some computers can 
read. What these food companies want to do is not tell you as a 
consumer whether the food has GMOs or not. As you go through the 
grocery store, they want you to hold your cell phone up to that box of 
macaroni and cheese to see if it has GMO in it or not by reading all 
that is written on your cell phone. That is a bad joke.
  I just went shopping with my two 4\1/2\-year-old grandkids. I cannot 
imagine walking through that store, trying to keep them from raiding 
different displays, and using my cell phone on box after box of 
macaroni and cheese. That, to me, is the ``secret decoder ring'' 
approach to this, and I think it is an embarrassment to consumers to 
ask them to go through that. So I will be voting in opposition to the 
GMO bill when it comes before us later in the day.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, the Presiding Officer and I are fairly new 
to this Chamber. I know Senate rules prevent me from engaging anyone 
who happens to be in the gallery, so I will not do that. But I have to 
admit, watching what has gone on here for the last 15 or 20 minutes, I 
can't help but think at least one or two are saying: What on Earth is 
going on down on that Senate floor? We have heard arguments embedded in 
arguments.
  The issue we have before us today is on the biotechnology labeling 
vote. We have heard about judges. Look, everybody says we are in 
gridlock here. There are obviously instances where we disagree. Let's 
set those aside and address legislation where we do agree we have 
pressing issues, and we have two of those before the Senate today.
  The one immediately before us is on biotechnology labeling, and I am 
going to get to that in a minute. The other has to do with funding 
Zika. It has to do with trying to understand why some 38 of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted for $1.1 billion in 
Zika funding, and now it is back before us. It is one vote away from 
going to the President's desk, and now they are all voting against it. 
Collectively, the Members who voted for the $1.1 billion and now vote 
against it represent States that have 671 Zika cases reported to date. 
It looks as if we are going to be here a little bit tonight, and I will 
get into the details and share the roll call vote, but today I want to 
talk about biotechnology.
  I want to start by thanking Senator Roberts and Senator Stabenow for 
the work they did in reaching a bipartisan solution to this 
controversial issue. We voted on cloture yesterday, and we had a 
majority of over 60--65 to be exact--

[[Page S4875]]

Members vote. What cloture means is to get on the bill. Now we are on 
the bill. What does this bill do?
  What it is trying to do is avoid the confusion and the cost when a 
State implements a law that becomes de facto Federal law of the land 
and increases the cost of food prices to consumers. This is what we are 
proposing to avoid in the language we have before us that I hope we 
vote on and I hope we focus on. This is only one choice of one State--
the State of Vermont. There are several dozen States that plan to have 
their own variance, and I will talk about the absurd exemptions and 
exceptions later on.
  The bottom line: Complexity creates cost--cost to the American 
consumer. In Vermont alone, the Vermont law will increase the annual 
cost of food per family--in Vermont alone--by about $2,000 a year. 
There are people struggling to pay for the food they have right now. 
There are people trying to decide, do they pay to heat their home or 
eat? Now we are talking about raising food costs, for some of the 
poorest people, by $2,000 a year.
  Complexity equates to cost. This provides clarity. I am going to talk 
a little bit about that, but I do appreciate Senator Roberts and 
Senator Stabenow for getting those of us who are willing to work 
together, who are willing to say to people at either end of the 
spectrum: Guys, we are going to come up with a compromise and solve 
this problem. We have that opportunity before us now, and I hope we 
will get to an affirmative vote later today.
  As I said earlier, the state-by-state patchwork is unsustainable. 
Right now, we are talking about what Vermont decided to do. What about 
California? What about my State of North Carolina and all the other 
ones? Some people say: Well, you are preempting State law. When a State 
law affects interstate commerce across the Nation--because if I am a 
Campbell Soup Company or a Kellogg's or a small mom-and-pop shop trying 
to distribute in Vermont--if I don't get the labeling exactly right, I 
could be subject to millions of dollars of fines just because I have a 
jar or a can or a box on a shelf that isn't consistent with their 
labels.
  I live in Charlotte, NC. Charlotte is right on the border of North 
Carolina and South Carolina. If you have a truck carrying cans of 
Campbell's soup, it has to be labeled one way in North Carolina and 
another in South Carolina. Does that make sense? It adds cost. It 
doesn't add value. That is why we are trying to prevent this patchwork 
of laws that could go on the books.
  I want to talk a little bit about biotechnology for a minute because 
Senator Durbin said something that I think is very important. I sit on 
the Agriculture Committee. I asked all the heads of the FDA, the EPA, 
and the U.S. Department of Agriculture the same question in the same 
committee hearing several months ago. I said: Do you have any 
scientific data whatsoever--let's go to the FDA first, Food and Drug 
Administration--that would suggest that food containing biotechnology 
represent any threat to health? The FDA leader, appointed by the Obama 
administration, said: None whatsoever. Then I moved to the EPA, the 
Environmental Protection Agency. I asked precisely the same question. I 
got precisely the same answer. Then I went to the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture. I asked precisely the same question and got precisely the 
same answer.
  When we walk the halls here, people say: Thom, I know. I know they 
are safe. But for some reason we have lost the argument. Ladies and 
gentlemen, the reason we can't lose the argument on agricultural 
biotech--what some people call GMO--is that our Nation and our world's 
food supply rely on it. Over ninety percent of all corn grown in Iowa 
is grown as a result of biotech--not some sort of Frankencorn, but corn 
that is heat resistant, corn that is moisture resistant, fungus 
resistant.
  If we were to roll back 30 or 40 years of progress in agriculture 
biotech and take it out of our food supply chain, we could literally be 
in a position where people will starve--maybe not in the United States 
but all the nations we export to--because we simply cannot produce the 
world's food supply if we go back 10, 20, or 30 years. So it is a very 
important part of our food supply, it is a safe food, it is an 
environmentally sound food, and it is one that we just have to 
understand.
  Having said that, I firmly believe that everybody has the right to 
know what is in their food. That is why I love the compromise bill that 
Senator Roberts and Senator Stabenow have before us today. It is pretty 
simple. Again, I know I can't interact with the gallery, so I will not. 
But my guess is that most of the people in the gallery over the age of 
about 12 have a smartphone. One or two may have flip phones--and there 
is an alternative that I will talk about--but most probably have 
smartphones. As a matter of fact, 207 million people in the United 
States have smartphones. I know Senator Durbin is not familiar with it, 
but many of them come with what is called a QR code reader. I will give 
those watching from home a chance to actually scan it while hearing me 
talk live.
  I remember--I think it was President Bush back in the 1990s who went 
through a shopping line and was astounded because he saw a bar code 
reader. He said: Wow, that is new technology. It had been around for a 
while. Guess what, folks. QR codes have been around a while. As a 
matter of fact, yesterday when the distinguished gentleman from Oregon 
spoke, he had a QR code up on the screen. I said: Heck, I want to see 
what that is. So I clicked on the QR code on the Campbell's can. It 
brought up on Wikipedia the history of the New York Yankees. But it 
proves the point that you can go directly from that QR code to the 
Internet and get the information you need in real time.
  What is the other advantage of QR codes? You can board an airplane 
with them, you can get information about your fuel, you can get medical 
services. It is everywhere. It is ubiquitous. It is prevalent. 
Everywhere you go, you see them. When I go to the store, because my 
wife is pretty strict on how much money I can spend, I will scan a QR 
code to see if I can find a comparative shop, and maybe I need to go 
down the street to buy that same product. In other words, it is an 
integral part of our lives. For somebody to say it is new, weird, 
different, hard to use--it only takes one button, one click on your 
phone, to actually get to the rich information on the Internet. That is 
what this bill is about.
  So what if that QR code is on the product--a can of soup, a bag of 
flour, or any product you buy in the grocery store that is subject to 
this law. You go to your phone, you hit QR code reader which is on your 
smartphone, and it would immediately bring you to a website. This is 
what this proposed law requires. It immediately brings you to a 
website, in the cases I have done it, in 2 or 3 seconds. The minute you 
get to the site, you get all kinds of information. You get nutritional 
information, caloric value, and all kinds of things you need to know 
about what is in your food. Right on the page you can click down, and 
you can see whether it has any agriculture biotech content. Then you 
can even draw down further and find out what that means. It is in this 
bill. It can be done. Small businesses use this. Political people use 
this. Everybody uses this as a way to rapidly get to the Internet.
  I don't know about you all, but I think this Internet thing is going 
to take off. I think it is going to be here for a while. So I think we 
are going to be increasingly comfortable with this sort of way to get 
the richest information available on the food we are going to eat. For 
those who say this is some sort of weird code or outdated, I don't know 
about you all, but that is not the world I live in. I think it is a 
very effective way to get it.
  Let's assume you are a small business and you don't have the ability 
to create a QR code. Frankly, I would tell that small business to do it 
because that creates a competitive advantage. That makes you look as 
big as Campbell Soup Company and lets you compete. It is easy to put up 
a website. Most of us have them or know how to get them up pretty 
easily. I can put one up in 2 or 3 hours and then have a QR code to go 
to it. But let's assume they don't want to do it. It is a mom-and-pop 
shop, and they just don't like QR code readers. You can have a 1-800 
number if you satisfy certain thresholds: For more product information, 
call this number. And they have a statutory obligation to disclose to 
you the

[[Page S4876]]

contents of the food and whether or not it has any agriculture biotech 
products in it. If you don't want to do a 1-800 number, you can also do 
a simple Web address. Key in thomscornerstore.com, or whatever, and get 
to the same information.
  The fact is, this bill does that. It fully discloses and creates a 
statutory requirement that says the food manufacturer must disclose the 
content of their food, the nutritional information, biotech content, et 
cetera.
  It is mandatory. There were disagreements on our side because we had 
Members on our side of the aisle who said they didn't like 
``mandatory.'' We decided in the interest of compromise to accept the 
mandatory requirement. It takes 2 years before the rules are made and 
about 3 years before most businesses will have to be fully phased in. 
Quite honestly, most manufacturers are going to do it because they 
understand, as I do, the advantage of quick access to having a consumer 
get to their Web presence, and there are other things they can do once 
they get there.
  We know that the QR code, the URLs, and the 1-800 numbers work. We 
know that everybody has the right to know what is in their food. This 
law mandates that this happens. It eliminates the absurd exceptions and 
exemptions. For anybody who wants to do this, I know this code works. 
If you are at home right now and you see this code, you should be able 
to take your QR code scanner and go up to your TV, like I did 
yesterday, and go to this website and see in real time what I just 
demonstrated on the prior slide.
  Why do we need to do this? Why do we need a Federal consistent 
framework for doing this? Why is it the Federal Government's 
responsibility to get involved in this? Going back to the first slide, 
I don't want families in Vermont to pay an additional $2,000 a year for 
their food. I don't want families in North Carolina to pay an 
additional $1,100 a year for the same food they bought last year only 
because of these state mandated labeling requirements.
  Let me give you a couple of examples of what I am talking about in 
the Vermont law. Imagine if this were multiplied by 2-dozen or 3-dozen 
other States. Frozen pepperoni pizza is exempt from the Vermont law. 
Frozen cheese pizza has to be labeled. Vegetable beef soup is exempt 
from the Vermont law. Vegetable soup has to be labeled. Multiply that 
by dozens and dozens of other States. Think about all of these absurd 
exceptions and exemptions that can occur if we have 50 statehouses 
trying to create a patchwork of laws.
  For an American family, the Vermont law will add an additional cost 
of about $1,200 a year to the grocery bill. Imagine if we had 24 or 36 
different States that we had to interpret, the cost would go up. The 
food is no more nutritious. It just costs more. That is why we need a 
Federal standard.
  To my friends on the other side of the aisle and a handful on this 
side of the aisle, folks, this is just common sense. Anybody should be 
able to figure this out on 8 hours of sleep. This is not a difficult 
decision. We need to solve this problem now. Then we need to get on to 
Zika, which I will come back and talk about a little bit later on, and 
then we can get to all the other myriad of things we need to get done 
here.
  When I came here in January of last year, I was accustomed to getting 
things done in the North Carolina House. This is an opportunity to get 
something done that makes sense, that removes the threat of raising 
food costs and not producing one iota of positive difference in health 
outcomes. I hope my friends on both sides of the aisle recognize that 
this is an opportunity where we can prove to the people in this gallery 
and the people in this Nation that we can actually get things done.
  This is a compromise. This is something my friends on the right do 
not necessarily like and I know some of my friends on the left don't 
like, but it is right. It is necessary now so we can protect the people 
who don't know that, if this bill doesn't get passed, they are going to 
be paying more for food for no more value.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                           Zika Virus Funding

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am not supportive of the bill we will be 
voting on shortly relative to the labeling of GMOs, but I do admit the 
Senator is right in that this was an example of a group of Democrats 
and Republicans working on a solution that may end up getting the 
support of a supermajority of this body. That is the difference between 
what happened on the process of developing a GMO bill and the process 
of developing our response to the Zika epidemic.
  Everybody knows what happened here. We had a bipartisan compromise 
that passed the Senate. It went to a conference committee. Democrats 
were shut out of the conference committee. I am a member of that 
conference committee. There was no negotiation between Republicans and 
Democrats. Republicans on the conference committee threw out the 
bipartisan compromise that was negotiated here in the Senate in order 
to address the concerns of very conservative Members of the House 
Republican caucus, and the bill got loaded up with all of the things 
that Senator Durbin mentioned. At the top of the list was a ban on 
funding for Planned Parenthood, which Republicans on the conference 
committee knew would poison the well. They knew that by putting in a 
ban on funding for Planned Parenthood, they would make it impossible to 
pass the Zika supplemental request.
  We don't need to engage in hyperbole or histrionics. That is what 
happened. What happened is the Republicans decided to put a bill on the 
floor of the Senate that couldn't pass, knowing exactly what could pass 
because weeks earlier we had formed a compromise that was thrown out 
the window. It is a little unpleasant to be lectured to about why 
Democrats are unwilling to support the Zika bill that is in front of us 
because Republicans know exactly why we can't support it. It is because 
the compromise that we all worked on got thrown out and all sorts of 
political poison pills got added to it that everyone in the conference 
knew would mean it wouldn't pass the Senate.


                            Opioid Epidemic

  Mr. President, I want to talk about another public health crisis that 
is confronting this country, and that is the overdose crisis that is 
plaguing every single State that we hail from. Here is the picture of 
overdoses in my State over the course of the last 4 years. It is a 
harrowing chart in that, if you go back to 2012, we had just under 400 
drug overdose deaths that year. We are on pace in 2016 to more than 
double that number. Our projected number of overdose deaths is 832.
  If you look deeper into this chart, it is fentanyl and heroin that 
are driving these numbers. In fact, our cocaine overdoses have remained 
relatively stable. It is fentanyl and heroin that are skyrocketing. You 
can put this chart up for almost every other State in the country and 
see the same phenomenon. Here it is broken down by town. There is 
almost no town in Connecticut that hasn't been visited by this 
epidemic. This small town here is one that you probably know. That is 
New Haven, CT. On June 23, a few weeks ago, city officials in New Haven 
declared a public health emergency after 17 individuals overdosed and 3 
people died from fentanyl in less than 24 hours. Some of the patients 
needed as many as five doses of Narcan to revive them. The public 
health authorities and law enforcement in the city effectively ran out 
of Narcan overnight because of this batch of straight, pure fentanyl 
that killed 3 people and sent 17 others to the hospital. That is just 
one night in one town.
  Two years ago, the United States Congress authorized $4 billion in 
emergency funding to combat the Ebola virus--$4 billion for a virus 
that had less than 10 confirmed cases in the United States. In 
Connecticut, we are going to have 830 people die from opioid overdose 
this year. We are a small State. We represent 1 percent of the Nation's 
population. We are going to have 830 people die from overdoses this 
year, and this Congress hasn't appropriated one dime of emergency 
funding.
  You can't help but think there is a double standard here--that 
perhaps the reason we are not allocating emergency funding for this 
epidemic, which is killing dozens of people every week in my State, is 
because of the nature of the epidemic. It is rooted in addiction, and 
we still have a stigma about addiction in which we blame the addict.
  Marvin and Laura Beninson came into my office, and they told me the

[[Page S4877]]

story of their beautiful, bright young daughter Victoria, who began 
slurring her words at Easter dinner. Victoria was a wonderful young 
woman. They knew something was wrong that Easter. When she left the 
house, they went into her room, and they found needles and little 
packets of a substance, and they said: Thus began our battle with 
heroin addiction.
  This is the father talking now. He said:

       My daughter has been through detox and six treatment 
     centers. She has stolen and hocked all of my wife's jewelry 
     while we were on vacation, stolen $3,000 to 4,000 from my 
     oldest daughter's bank account while she was in the Army, 
     written thousands of dollars of bad checks from her friend's 
     check book and been arrested for shop lifting.
       The truth is that addiction is a disease just like cancer 
     and there is no choice once you have it. It certainly was our 
     daughter's choice to take heroin but it wasn't her choice to 
     become addicted.

  Addiction is a disease, and it can be treated medically, just like 
every other disease. There may be an element of choice in taking that 
first dose, but after that there is a medical solution. Yet, for some 
reason, we allocate $4 billion to combat Ebola and not a dime to combat 
the epidemic of opioid abuse.
  The funding that we are asking for--and my colleague Senator Shaheen 
put a vote before this body to appropriate $600 million in emergency 
funding--would go to SAMHSA for treatment. It would go to education 
programs, to prescription drug monitoring programs, and $230 million of 
it would go to justice assistance grants to make sure we are catching 
the bad guys who are selling this kind of Fentanyl that is killing 
people in New Haven.
  Every day that we wait, this epidemic becomes worse and more people 
perish. We need to come together and appropriate emergency funding to 
take on this epidemic. We need to do it soon, but we need to do other 
things as well. Deeply buried into our Medicaid reimbursement laws is a 
discriminatory prohibition on Medicaid funding being used for long-term 
substance abuse and mental health treatment beds. The Presiding Officer 
and I are trying to repeal this provision as it relates to the 
treatment of people with mental illness, but it also relates to people 
who are struggling with substance abuse.
  Medicaid dollars cannot be used for long-term treatment beds for 
individuals with substance abuse and mental illness. It is one of the 
few instances in our reimbursement policy at the Federal level in which 
we specifically prohibit reimbursement for a treatment that has been 
prescribed by a medical professional. Again, this seems rooted in this 
decades-old stigma about people with mental illness and substance 
abuse--that they should just get over it, they should just cure 
themselves, and they should make a different choice. So there is not a 
need for these long-term beds.
  The second thing we need to do, in addition to appropriating 
emergency funding to take care of this immediate crisis, is to repeal 
the prohibition on Medicaid dollars going to long-term treatment beds. 
Not everybody needs long-term treatment but many do. Many are comorbid 
with a substance abuse disorder and a mental illness. Yet you get 
kicked out of many treatment centers within a handful of days. This is 
a discriminatory provision in our law, and it is leading in parts of 
this epidemic because once they show up in the emergency room, there is 
no place to put them.
  Third, we need to build on what the administration announced recently 
and pass the TREAT Act. The TREAT Act would allow for more patients to 
get prescription naloxone--buprenorphine--for treatment of their 
addiction. It is an effective drug, but as of now doctors can only see 
a relative handful of patients before they hit a statutory cap. We have 
examples in Connecticut of individuals traveling on 12 buses for 12 
hours to find a prescriber who still had room under the cap in order to 
prescribe buprenorphine.

  The lengths you have to go to get medical treatment for addiction are 
more evidence of this discriminatory treatment and this stigma that 
remains in the law. There is no cap when it comes to the number of 
patients a cancer doctor or an orthopedic surgeon can have, but there 
is a cap on the number of patients addiction doctors can have.
  We have to pass the TREAT Act as well. These addictions can be 
treated.
  I sat down with a group of former heroin users, individuals in 
recovery, in Bristol, CT, back in March. I spent an entire day in March 
living the life of the epidemic. I visited emergency rooms, first 
responders, and people in recovery.
  Greg told me his story. He injured his back in his line of work as an 
arborist. He works with trees, and he injured his back. He was 
prescribed prescription painkillers for his herniated disk. You have 
heard this story before. He got hooked on the prescription painkillers 
and continued to see doctors so he could get as many prescriptions as 
possible--until he ran out. When he couldn't get any more prescription 
drugs, he turned to heroin and became an addict. He looked and looked 
and looked for treatment but couldn't find it. Finally, he ran into 
Courtney Labonte, who runs a Web site called ctsuboxone.com. She found 
a treatment provider who could get him on medication therapy. Today he 
is in recovery and doing better. He has made the decision to change his 
life, and he has the resources to do it. There are millions of people 
who can tell that story as well, but not enough.
  Without this funding and the repeal of the discriminatory Medicaid 
rule and without passage of the TREAT Act, we are denying medical 
treatment to the thousands of people in my State--including the 800 
people who will die this year from overdosing--who are grappling with 
addiction. I hope that before we break, we will find the courage and 
common sense to pass these measures and at least get some emergency 
funding appropriated.
  I thank the body for its time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                        Remembering Elie Wiesel

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to celebrate the life of a 
cherished friend and a champion of freedom in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel. 
In Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Elie traveled far beyond the limits of 
human suffering, descending deep into an abyss of agony and pain that 
surpassed the torment of hell itself. Yet Elie survived this hell, and 
he lived to tell his story.
  Through his solemn witness, he worked tirelessly to ensure that the 
world would never forget the horrors of the Holocaust. With Elie's 
passing, we have lost a true hero and a luminary of Holocaust 
literature. Now that Elie is gone, we must remember--now more than 
ever--his solemn charge to all mankind: Never forget. Never forget the 
Holocaust that it may never happen again.
  Elie was the living conscience of a generation. He knew perhaps 
better than anyone the depths of human depravity. Having suffered as 
few ever have, he spoke on matters of human nature with a moral 
authority unmatched by his contemporaries.
  I was blessed to know Elie and even more fortunate to call him a 
friend. I first met Elie when I was asked to serve with him on the 
board of trustees for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Elie's warmth 
was immediate, his spirit contagious. That he remained compassionate 
and kind even after the atrocities of Auschwitz is a testimony to his 
character and the resiliency of his spirit.
  I remember speaking with Elie when he came to watch Prime Minister 
Netanyahu address a joint session of Congress. I surprised Elie that 
day when I showed him my mezuzah, which I have worn around my neck 
every day for 40 years. I carry this mezuzah as a symbol of my respect 
and love for the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. The mezuzah 
represents the Lord's watchful presence in our lives. Elie was 
delighted that I, a gentile, would wear this religious symbol. I wanted 
to show Elie my mezuzah as if to say: I am still listening; I am still 
remembering; I am still fighting the incessant tides of anti-Semitism 
that threaten Jews across the globe.
  Through his writing, Elie gave a voice to the millions of Jews whose 
voices had been stifled and silenced during the genocide. Of course, 
Elie's account is but one story; there are 6 million more. Although we 
can never begin to fathom the suffering of each individual Holocaust 
victim, Elie used the power of his pen to make their suffering more 
tangible to all of us.

[[Page S4878]]

  ``Night'' was the foundation for Elie's other works. I strongly 
encourage all of my colleagues to read Elie's somber account of life in 
a Nazi death camp. One of Elie's most poignant verses stays with me to 
this day:

     Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, 
           that turned my life into one long night seven times 
           sealed.
     Never shall I forget that smoke.
     Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose 
           bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
     Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith 
           forever.
     Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me 
           for all eternity of the desire to live.
     Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and 
           my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
     Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to 
           live as long as God Himself.
     Never.

  How did Elie ever find hope after witnessing such unspeakable 
atrocities? He found hope in the promise of a Jewish nation. He found 
hope in the belief that Israel matters, that Israel is both a state and 
a state of being. Although many disagreed with his view, Elie remained 
steadfast in his support for Israel. After being recognized for the 
Nobel Peace Prize, Elie pleaded before world leaders who had grown 
apathetic in their own support. He said:

       If you could remember what I remembered, you would 
     understand Israel is the only nation in the world whose 
     existence is threatened. Should Israel lose but one war, it 
     would mean her end, and ours as well. But I have faith. . . . 
     Without it no action would be possible. And action is the 
     only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of 
     all.

  Elie warned us that neutrality only helps the oppressor, never the 
victim. He also taught us that we must take sides. Perhaps most 
importantly, Elie told us to never forget. There is a quiet elegance 
and fierce determination in this plea. Oftentimes, people try to put a 
positive spin on this by saying ``always remember,'' but Elie eschewed 
this more uplifting phrase because he wasn't concerned with helping 
people feel better about the Holocaust, he was concerned with helping 
them understand the true horror of the genocide to ensure that it would 
never happen again. He wanted all who listened, all who read, and all 
who prayed to understand that hate is a virus and it is a virus that 
spreads quickly. For Elie, it was not enough to merely remember those 
who died; he wanted us to never forget how they suffered.
  Today we can honor Elie Wiesel and his legacy by remembering always 
his humble plea: Never forget.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. 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. BOOZMAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business 
for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Honoring Our Armed Forces

                     Sergeant Sylvester Bruce Cline

  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, the men and women who wear our uniform 
are selfless heroes who embody the American spirit, courage, honor, and 
patriotism. They are defenders of our freedom.
  I am here to honor and pay my respects to one of America's finest: 
Arkansas Army National Guard SGT Sylvester Bruce Cline.
  Sergeant Cline graduated from Humphrey High School, where he was a 
basketball standout. He continued his education at Arkansas Baptist 
College and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
  In 2002, Sergeant Cline enlisted in the Arkansas National Guard. In 
more than a decade of service, he demonstrated his dedication, 
perseverance, and commitment to excellence in defense of our country. 
Sergeant Cline was a veteran of a combat deployment to Iraq with the 
39th Infantry Brigade in 2008. For his service, he was awarded the Iraq 
Campaign Medal, a Global War on Terror Service Medal, as well as other 
awards and decorations. Sergeant Cline served in the Arkansas Army 
National Guard's Company A, 39th Brigade Support Battalion, 39th 
Infantry Brigade Combat Team. His mom called him ``Mr. Mom'' for his 
devotion to his children and entire family, which truly was his 
greatest passion.
  On June 14, 2015, Sergeant Cline died during an annual training 
exercise with his unit at Fort Chaffee, AK.
  I ask my colleagues to keep his family--his children, mother and 
father, sisters, brother, extended family, and friends--in their 
thoughts and prayers during these difficult times, and I humbly offer 
my appreciation and gratitude for his service to the United States of 
America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                         Postpartum Depression

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I wish to take a few moments this 
afternoon to shed some light and speak about the issue of postpartum 
depression. As a physician himself, the Presiding Officer is aware of 
the reality many new, young mothers face when they deal with issues 
relating to postpartum depression, but I think what is perhaps unknown 
is the incidence of postpartum depression here in the United States. 
The fact is that one in seven mothers nationwide will suffer from 
postpartum depression. In my State of Alaska, the numbers are even more 
troubling. In Alaska, one in three new mothers will deal with the 
difficulty of postpartum depression.
  About a month ago--it has been a little bit more than that by now--I 
sat down with a local Anchorage reporter who was working on a series 
looking at the impacts of postpartum depression. I will just call it 
PPD. She put together a four-part televised series that focused on 
seven very strong, very passionate women from the Anchorage community 
who came forward to share their stories. It was an interesting 
interview because the reporter wanted to ask me about some legislation 
I have been involved with here in the Senate. But it gave me an 
opportunity to reflect back on the time when I was a new mother with a 
beautiful, handsome little boy and the responsibilities of being a mom 
literally overnight. Coming from a family of six, you figure you know 
how to deal with children, but until you walk out of that hospital and 
you have that responsibility, it is not something you come prepared for 
or with a guidebook for. It is kind of trial by error every day.

  I recalled the reality of the responsibilities I faced as a new 
mother. I recalled some of the angst and concern I had about whether I 
was doing things right. Here I was supposed to be happy and joyous and 
excited about this beautiful bundle of baby boy I had and instead I was 
tired and fatigued and stressed. I was stressed. Was I doing everything 
right? I wasn't sure.
  While I did not deal or suffer the anxiety that comes with postpartum 
depression, as a new mother filled with just my own level of concern, I 
did feel the symptoms that I think many women feel and share. Yet you 
don't want to talk about it because you are supposed to be excited and 
happy and not in a state that is described as anything less than 
joyful. So I think, unfortunately, many women don't share their 
concerns, don't express their feelings. Instead, they deal with it and 
sometimes deal with it in ways that can be tragic.
  So I have been inspired. I have been very encouraged by the stories I 
have shared with and heard from women and other advocates who are 
fighting to raise awareness of the issue of PPD.
  Today I wish to share the story of one woman who lost her daughter to 
postpartum depression. I met this woman shortly after I had filmed this 
interview. She works in Anchorage as well as Wasilla as a child and 
adolescent psychiatrist. She has been absolutely passionate about 
providing care and support to children and adolescents in an effort to 
reduce and prevent suicide. So this is her life's work. She began to 
advocate for PPD after her own daughter, Brittany, suffered and 
ultimately lost her life to PPD. Brittany was 25 years old.
  Brittany was a beautiful, passionate, lively, bright young woman. She 
was born close to here, in Fairfax, VA, in 1989. She excelled in 
school. She graduated with an International Baccalaureate degree at 16 
from Mount Vernon High School. She loved animals. She dreamt of being a 
sports veterinarian one day. She continued to

[[Page S4879]]

excel academically while taking preveterinarian courses through the 
University of Pittsburgh and later online through North Carolina State 
University.
  One of Brittany's big goals was to race in the Iditarod, one of my 
favorite sporting events--certainly my favorite Alaskan event. She 
owned, she raced, and she showed several Siberian huskies. She worked 
as a dog handler for Karen Ramstead. She was part of Karen's 
preparation for the Iditarod. So she was into her dogs. She was into 
really her life. But as much as she loved the Iditarod, as much as she 
loved what she was doing, she considered motherhood to be her greatest 
achievement.
  But, very sadly, she began to struggle with PPD after the complicated 
delivery that resulted in her newborn son spending a week in the 
neonatal intensive care unit. She dealt with some very powerful 
emotions, some very violent emotions. She sought treatment from her 
physicians for her PPD, but she was in a situation where her cries were 
unanswered because she was dealing with physicians who were unable or 
perhaps ill-equipped to help her.
  It was about the time of her son's first birthday when Brittany lost 
her battle with PPD. As sad and as tragic as that was for all in 
Brittany's family, it was another woman outside the family--another 
woman musher--who really moved forward in working for and advocating 
for Brittany. It was DeeDee Janrowe who raced the Iditarod in 
Brittany's honor. She took forward that cause, that crusade.
  Again, Brittany was a bright, motivated, loving young woman who was 
struck down early in life because she didn't have access to the 
treatment she needed. Unfortunately, her story is just one of many. PPD 
impacts women in every race, every income, and all backgrounds.
  All too often, women who have PPD feel helpless. They feel 
overwhelmed. They are certainly confused. They feel like they haven't 
done something right. They haven't properly bonded with their baby or 
they are ill-prepared, ill-equipped for parenthood. They just can't 
understand or figure out what may have gone wrong. The assumption out 
there is you have this beautiful baby, you should be joyful; why aren't 
you? And so because that expectation is different than what you are 
feeling, there is a hesitation to bring it up. There is a hesitation to 
speak about it.
  Again, I will repeat our statistics. Across the country, one in seven 
mothers will suffer from PPD and in Alaska, one in three women, twice 
the national average. There are some nonprofit organizations that are 
seeking to raise awareness and to help women connect with treatment for 
PPD, but often they are located in the populous areas of the State, but 
think about my State, which is so extraordinarily rural, where most of 
our communities are not connected by roads. What about the women who 
are unable to receive a proper screening, diagnosis, or treatment early 
on?
  Raising awareness of this issue is something we are trying to do. 
That is why I have been supporting legislation like the Bringing 
Postpartum Depression Out of the Shadows Act. I wish to thank the 
occupant of the chair, Senator Cassidy, along with Senators Alexander, 
Murray, and Murphy, for including PPD in the Mental Health Reform Act. 
I cosponsored both pieces of legislation because I think we need to do 
more to ensure we are ensuring proper screening and treatment for PPD. 
I want to support the efforts to improve culturally competent programs 
that will help educate physicians, especially our primary care 
providers, on the proper detection and treatment. We recognize this 
will not only benefit the women who are suffering but also improve the 
health and the well-being of their children and their families as a 
whole.
  With so many moms across my State and across the Nation who are 
facing postpartum depression, I think it is important, it is worthwhile 
that we do what we can to raise the issue, raise the awareness, put it 
at the forefront, openly discuss it, educate, and help improve our 
understanding of this illness. I thank the Chair for the opportunity to 
raise this issue before the body today.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.


                           Wasteful Spending

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I return to the floor now for the 47th week 
for the 47th edition of the ``Waste of the Week.'' I highlight 
documented examples of waste, fraud, and abuse of hard-earned 
taxpayers' dollars that come to the Federal Government and that the 
public has every right to expect us to spend wisely, effectively, and 
efficiently.
  Nonpartisan agencies like the Government Accountability Office and 
inspectors general are the watchdogs that examine how various agencies 
spend money and then report areas where they think expenditure doesn't 
live up to the promises that have been made, in terms of what it would 
accomplish, or question whether it ever should have been provided in 
the first place.
  Some of the examples I have provided over these 47 weeks have been 
labeled simply as ridiculous. I raised those because it grabs the 
attention of the American public, saying: How in the world could the 
Federal Government allow something like that to happen with my tax 
dollars? I get up every Monday morning and go to work and I work hard 
for those dollars and I have a mortgage to pay and I have bills to pay. 
I have gasoline I have to put in my car to get to work and back. Then I 
hear something on the floor of the U.S. Senate, from the Senator from 
Indiana, that is a documented expenditure that falls clearly within the 
category of simply a ridiculous decision--waste, fraud, or abuse.
  So whether it has been Federal grants to perform massages on 
rabbits--yes, massages on rabbits--to see whether a massage makes them 
feel better after a strenuous workout, I think any one of us could 
basically say you don't need to spend several hundred thousand dollars 
to prove that is something that works, or whether it is solar-fried 
burgers--I think 7,000 or so--that fly over a mirrored number of acres 
in a desert in California that are reflecting sunlight to a boiler, 
which has not proved to be cost-effective, and in the meantime it 
creates so much heat it has caused the cables that are necessary to 
produce the heat to be fried and also birds that fly over this solar 
field. I am surprised the environmentalists are not on top of that. 
Then there are the gambling monkeys, to see whether the monkeys were 
willing to take a greater risk and continue gambling if they had a 
reward for it--like, in their case, for food. I could have proven that 
with my dog that will eat anything I put in front of him, no matter how 
much I put down there.
  We are talking about several hundreds of thousands, if not millions, 
of dollars. Those are ludicrous. They are designed to catch people's 
attention so they will pay more attention to some of the examples of 
egregious wastes of money, designed for, perhaps, a good motive or the 
right purpose, but exposed, it is something that falls within that 
category of waste.
  In one of my very first ``Waste of the Week'' speeches, I talked 
about the issue of double dipping in Social Security disability funds 
and unemployment insurance. To receive clearance to receive Social 
Security and disability payments, you have to prove you can't work; you 
are disabled, you can't work. But to receive unemployment insurance, 
you have to be working and then be told you can no longer keep your 
job, and in that interim period of time until you get a new job, we are 
going to pay you insurance benefits. What the General Accounting Office 
found out was that people were getting checks for doing both. Look, you 
can do one or the other but not both. That was no small change. That 
was $6 billion. I think it is $5.7 billion of documented waste every 
year.

  Well, here we are at No. 47, and I would like to highlight yet 
another serious and very concerning example of waste: improper payments 
of taxpayer money through Medicare. All of us agree Medicare is an 
important program for millions of Americans, and we need to do what we 
can to preserve these important health care benefits for those who 
depend on them and need them, but an essential part of preserving these 
benefits is protecting Medicare from waste, fraud, and abuse. 
Throughout its history, we have read, and it has been determined by 
inspectors general and by the Government

[[Page S4880]]

Accountability Office, Medicare has been plagued by improper payments 
which are payments that are not justified can occur because of fraud or 
bureaucratic mismanagement. These improper payments not only threaten 
the solvency of Medicare, they leave millions of seniors vulnerable 
because when these improper payments are the result of fraud and abuse, 
they can jeopardize the health and well-being of Medicare beneficiaries 
for this reason: The reason is, Medicare is going broke. It is 
careening toward insolvency.
  The Medicare trustees have said we are only 12 short years away from 
insolvency under Medicare Part A. When you determine waste, fraud, and 
abuse, on a year-after-year-after-year basis in the billions and tens 
of billions of dollars, these are dollars not available to keep that 
program solvent. That is going to have a devastating effect on the 
ability for us to provide the Medicare services people of a certain age 
need.
  How many taxpayers' dollars am I talking about today? Well, in fiscal 
year 2015 alone, just in that year, the last year where the audits have 
been done, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, which 
administers Medicare, improperly paid out $59 billion for health 
services--in one single year, $59 billion of improper payments, 
representing nearly 10 percent of the total amount Medicare spent that 
year.
  As I said, just last month the Medicare trustees said Medicare Part A 
would be insolvent by 2028. Think about how much that 1 year of $59 
billion can do to help keep the program solvent. All of this is why it 
is all the more necessary for Congress, the administration, and the 
health care agencies to work in unison to solve this crisis of Medicare 
solvency.
  There is a group known as the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, and I 
commend whoever put that idea in play. It needs to be advanced 
significantly, but the idea with the strike force was it could root out 
the bad actors and bring them to justice. As an example, recently the 
strike force uncovered a ring of over 300 people--from physicians and 
pharmacists to nurses and government officials--who have allegedly 
conspired to defraud Medicare out of $900 million.
  How did they do it? Well, some of the examples in this fraud ring 
include the billing of Medicare for procedures the providers claim took 
place after the patient passed away. They were submitting Medicare 
claims for dead patients and receiving significant payments. Other 
providers billed Medicare for home health care, which is reserved for 
bedridden seniors, for services that were not even provided to the 
patients in need. It was fraud, in terms of people submitting many 
bills to CMS and receiving payments when the services were not 
provided.
  In Detroit, a so-called medical clinic billed Medicare for tens of 
millions of dollars, when in fact the clinic was determined to be a 
front for a narcotics diversion scheme. The clinic operators and 
recruiters targeted poor drug addicts who needed help and offered those 
addicts narcotics so clinics could then bill for Medicare services that 
were not provided. This was tens of millions of dollars. These are just 
examples of what the IGs found in terms of looking at Medicare 
payments. That is why I continue to come down every week to urge my 
colleagues in the Senate, in the House of Representatives, and the 
administration to take the necessary steps to tighten the screws on bad 
actors in Medicare, in agencies across the realm of this government, 
not only because they are gambling with the health of some of America's 
most vulnerable patients but also because we have such precious little 
time to work to save this program from insolvency.
  Our goal should be--in fact, it must be--to protect seniors, to 
promote good government practices, and achieve real savings by 
addressing these issues now.
  With that, I am adding another major amount of waste, fraud, and 
abuse for an ever-growing total. This week it is $59 billion for 
Medicare improper payments, bringing the total all the way to $234-plus 
billion in waste, fraud, and abuse of hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
  We wonder why the public has lost confidence and faith in their 
elected representatives and their institutions of government, when we 
see this kind of bureaucratic mess, when we see this kind of waste of 
hard-earned tax dollars, the fraud that is involved that is not 
detected and the abuse and terrible decision making by people who, 
respectfully, work for government agencies but don't exercise the kind 
of judgment the American taxpayer expects from them in terms of dealing 
with the money they send to Washington.
  Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator Florida.


                           Zika Virus Funding

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Vermont, who is 
next, for yielding me just a couple minutes.
  I want to be brief and to the point. Congress is 1 week away from 
recessing before the conventions. We have yet to appropriate 
significant funds to fight Zika. At this point, quite frankly, I don't 
care whose fault it is anymore--Republicans or Democrats. This whole 
partisan argument that is going on around this issue is inexcusable.
  Every single day now we have massive numbers of Zika cases being 
reported in my home State. Every day new records are being set. Just 
today a new case was found in a county that hadn't had a case yet. 
Forty-five out of fifty States in this country now have a Zika case. We 
have yet to see a local transmission, but it is coming, and I don't 
know, for the life of me, how anyone in this Chamber can go back home a 
week from now and say: We are going to be on recess for 6 weeks, in the 
peak of the summer, in the peak of mosquito season, in the peak of 
travel season, and we have appropriated nothing for the Zika virus. 
This makes no sense to me.
  Do you want to know why Congress's approval rating is at 1, 2, or 3 
percent, if that? It is because on an issue of public health we cannot 
find a way forward. My hope is that in the days to come, we will have 
an understanding that allows us to move forward. I am not just talking 
to the Senate, I am also talking to the House. Let's appropriate money 
and move forward and deal with this issue appropriately, with the 
urgency it deserves, or everyone is going to have to answer to their 
constituents as to why this public health crisis has blossomed and 
bloomed and we did nothing about it.
  I truly hope, in the hours and days leading up to our recess, we will 
find a rapid and quick way forward so we can address this and fix it 
and give our people the help they need in the short term and ultimately 
move toward the money we need to research for a vaccine so this issue 
can be prevented and this disease can be prevented from spreading in 
the future.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise to speak in very strong opposition 
to the Roberts-Stabenow bill concerning the labeling of genetically 
modified organisms, GMOs, and to discuss an amendment of mine that I 
hope will get to the floor as soon as possible.
  The simple truth is, people have the right to know what is in the 
food they eat, and when parents go to the store and purchase food, they 
have the right to know what is in the food their kids are going to be 
eating. That is why 64 countries all over the world, including the 
European Union, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia, and China, require 
labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms, GMOs. That 
is why my own State of Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, and Alaska have 
adopted laws to label foods containing GMOs. That is why the major 
environmental groups in this country, including the Natural Resources 
Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, 
the Environmental Working Group, Center for Food Safety, Food & Water 
Watch, and others have all come out in opposition to the Roberts-
Stabenow bill.
  It is no secret my own State of Vermont has led the way in requiring 
companies to label their products. Last Friday, Vermont became the 
first State in the Nation to require GMO labeling, and several other 
States have undertaken similar efforts. Passage of Vermont's law was a 
triumph for consumers, for ordinary Americans, over the powerful 
interests of companies like Monsanto and other multinational food 
industry corporations.

[[Page S4881]]

  Unfortunately, the victory in Vermont appears to be a hollow victory. 
The major agribusiness and biotech companies disagree with the right of 
consumers to know what is in their food, and not only do they disagree, 
they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying and in 
campaign contributions to overturn the GMO right-to-know legislation 
that States have already passed and that other States are on the verge 
of passing. They have also spent many millions more to pass Federal 
legislation like what we are considering today, which would deny States 
the right to go forward in this area.
  Let's be clear. This is just another shameful example of how big-
money interests are using their influence to enact policies that are 
contrary to what the vast majority of the American people want and what 
they support. These companies are spending millions and tens of 
millions and hundreds of millions of dollars to make certain that their 
interests prevail against what ordinary Americans feel very strongly 
about.
  The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which sued and lost in trying 
to stop Vermont's law, has 34 lobbyists working on this issue alone. 
They spent $8.5 million lobbying in 2015. In 2016, the Grocery 
Manufacturers Association has already spent $1.5 million in total 
lobbying. Monsanto has spent $2 million in 2016 lobbying Congress. The 
Environmental Working Group has calculated that food and biotech 
companies and trade associations have spent nearly $200 million to 
oppose State GMO labeling initiatives like Vermont's legislation. When 
combined with Washington lobbying expenditures that note GMO labeling 
as a purpose, the total amount spent by labeling opponents is close to 
$400 million--$400 million in order to prevent the people of our 
country knowing what is in the food they eat.
  This particular piece of corporate-backed legislation we are 
considering right now will create a confusing, misleading, and 
unenforceable national standard for labeling GMOs. This bill will 
preempt my State's law--the law in the State of Vermont--roll back the 
progress we have made, and is a huge setback to consumers' right to 
know what is in their food.
  I would say to my Republican colleagues who so often tell us about 
the need to get the Federal Government out of the lives of the people, 
who talk about States' rights, what this legislation does is preempt a 
law passed in the State of Vermont, which thousands of our people were 
involved in passing, which the State legislature held numerous hearings 
on, where the State law was sued and yet was sustained by a court.
  We have gone through all of that in the State of Vermont. We have 
Maine passing similar legislation, Connecticut passing legislation, 
Alaska passing legislation. Yet many of my friends who are great 
States' righters, who know how important the role of States is, are 
prepared to overturn all of the work done in these four States.
  What is specifically bad above and beyond the preemption aspects of 
this legislation? Instead of a uniform labeling standard like Vermont's 
law, the language in this bill allows text symbols or an electronic QR 
code to be used. This is intentionally confusing to consumers, and the 
information may be entirely inaccessible if the consumer does not have 
access to the Internet. The QR code is not required to have text next 
to it to make it clear that the code provides additional information 
about GMOs. It can merely say ``Scan here for more food information.'' 
That makes no sense. People may not even know to scan it to learn more 
about GMOs specifically.
  You can imagine how ridiculous this will be in the real world. A mom 
goes to a store with two kids who are running around, and she is 
supposed to take out her cell phone and scan a label in a store that 
may or may not have a good Internet connection. This is not an effort 
to provide information; this is an effort to deny information to 
consumers.
  Reading information right on the label takes a matter of seconds. Why 
would we require families and shoppers to take considerable time when 
under Vermont's law they only need a moment to look at a label? Right 
now we have labels that tell us the amount of calories and give us 
other information on what is in a product. We look at it and we make a 
judgment as to whether this is a product we wish to purchase, and that 
is clearly what should be the case with products that contain GMOs.
  There is also an argument to be made that this bill is discriminatory 
in its impact. Putting the onus on the consumer, making it necessary 
for that consumer to have a smartphone and Internet access, prohibits 
those without that access. Not everybody in America owns a cell phone. 
Many low-income people and working people do not own a cell phone.
  Yesterday's New York Times noted in an editorial that ``the biggest 
problem with the Senate bill is that--instead of requiring a simple 
label, as the Vermont law does--it would allow food companies to put 
the information in electronic codes that consumers would have to scan 
with smartphones or at scanners installed by grocery stores.'' 
According to the New York Times, ``The only reason to do this would be 
to make the information less accessible to the public.''
  Less accessible to the public. The New York Times has it exactly 
right.
  Further, this bill allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture to rule 
on what percentage of GMO material is present in a particular food 
before it gets labeled, in contrast to Vermont's and the European 
Union's standards, both of which require products with more than nine-
tenths of 1 percent GMO to be labeled.
  The Roberts-Stabenow bill also contains a huge loophole in the 
labeling requirement, stating that there is no labeling requirement for 
GMO foods that could have occurred ``through conventional breeding or 
found in nature.'' Essentially, if the genetic engineering done by a 
company could have occurred in nature, there is no requirement to label 
it, which would prevent GMO corn, beet sugar, and soy oils from being 
labeled. The FDA has confirmed this loophole, stating that as the 
language is currently written, ``many of the foods from [genetically 
engineered] sources will not be subject'' to labeling requirements.
  Under this bill, consumers will be left in the dark for at least 
another 2 years, maybe longer. Once USDA has published its regulations, 
there is no mandatory timeline for companies to comply. In other words, 
we are pushing this issue further and further into the future.
  Perhaps the real giveaway as to why this is not a serious piece of 
legislation is that, most shockingly, this bill imposes no Federal 
penalties whatsoever for violating the so-called labeling requirement, 
making the law essentially meaningless. In other words, you have a 
confusing law that will not be utilized by most people, but then on top 
of all of that, if a company does not obey the law, there is no penalty 
whatsoever. So that will give a great incentive for companies to 
continue to do nothing.
  In other words, this bill is weak, it is full of loopholes, and it 
has no requirement to comply.
  In addition to the bill's many flaws, the bill most significantly is 
not necessary. In fact, many large companies, such as Campbell's, 
Frito-Lay, Kellogg's, and ConAgra, have begun to label their products 
nationally in anticipation of Vermont's law. For example, here is a 
label that appears on M&Ms. Everybody knows M&Ms. They are manufactured 
by Mars, one of the major candy companies in the world. Here it is, 
five words: ``partially produced with genetic engineering.'' That is 
it. It is right here on the label. This is what you will see if you 
pick up a package of M&Ms today. It is out there. It is on the label. 
People can make their determination as to whether they want to buy the 
product. Other major companies are already doing that. Campbell's is 
doing it, Frito-Lay is doing it, Kellogg's is doing it, and ConAgra is 
doing it. In other words, many of the major companies are already 
complying with the law. We do not need to go beyond that. Guess what. 
These companies that began to label these products did it and the sky 
didn't fall. I guess people are still buying M&Ms, other candies, and 
the other products manufactured by these companies.
  In addition to a consumer's right to know, it is important to note 
that when we talk about GMOs, it is not just the question of the 
manipulation

[[Page S4882]]

of genetic material, it is about the chemicals necessary to make these 
crops productive.
  The Environmental Working Group has exposed that GMOs have not 
decreased pesticide and herbicide use as promised. In fact, the use of 
toxic chemicals to grow food has only increased. Herbicide use has 
increased exponentially and glyphosate use specifically has increased 
by 3,000 percent since the 1990s.

  In the State of Vermont, Monsanto, Dow, and Syngenta promised our 
farmers that GMO corn would allow them to reduce the amount of 
chemicals needed for their crop production. Instead, herbicide and 
chemical fertilizer use on Vermont dairy farms has almost doubled from 
2002 to 2012 just to keep up with the need for more pesticides and 
herbicides to get enough corn to feed the dairy cows.
  This is troubling not only because it is extremely expensive for 
farmers to keep up with the seed and pesticide needs, it is also very 
dangerous because eight of the active ingredients in use have been 
linked to birth defects, developmental defects, and contaminated 
drinking water.
  In addition to these concerns, I also want to appeal to my colleagues 
who have come to the Senate floor to speak in support of States' 
rights. As I said earlier, make no mistake about it--this is 
significantly a States' rights issue, and this bill is an assault on 
States' rights. This bill would preempt Vermont's laws, Connecticut's 
laws, and Maine's laws.
  According to the Center for Food Safety, this bill would preempt more 
than 100 State and municipal food and seed laws. The center notes 
specifically that Virginia's seed law allows farmers to have the 
critical information they need to make informed choices about which 
seed is the most appropriate for them to purchase and plant.
  I will name just a few of the other State laws that would be 
preempted. It would override Alaska's labeling law, which requires that 
genetically engineered fish be labeled. The Roberts-Stabenow bill would 
also preempt a Florida statute that requires a permit for the release 
of exotic organisms and includes genetically modified organisms. The 
Roberts-Stabenow bill would preempt a Michigan statute that created an 
invasive species advisory council. It would preempt a Missouri statute 
that authorizes the State entomologist to determine whether something 
is not only a plant pest but also whether the pest is of such a harmful 
nature that its introduction to or dissemination within the State 
should be prevented. It would also preempt a South Carolina regulation 
that defines plant pests.
  In other words, I find it interesting that this legislation has the 
support of the vast majority of Republicans who day after day tell us 
how they want to get the Federal Government out of people's lives, but 
this legislation preempts dozens of State laws all over this country 
that were passed by State legislatures and signed by the Governors of 
those States. These are just a few of the laws; there are dozens more 
that would be nullified under the Roberts-Stabenow bill.
  The amendment I intend to offer, which I hope my colleagues will all 
support, would make Vermont's law the national standard. For those who 
have argued that companies would be unable to comply with a 50-State 
patchwork of GMO regulation, my amendment would alleviate that concern.
  Specifically, Vermont's law--unlike the bill before the Senate--
enjoyed a full hearing and amendment process. It was much discussed in 
the Vermont State Legislature. Vermont's law was years in the making, 
and legislators heard hours of testimony from dozens of stakeholders, 
including organic farmers and environmental organizations. The Roberts-
Stabenow language has had none of this scrutiny and was brought to the 
floor by a procedural means without one hearing or one committee 
markup.
  Unlike the Roberts-Stabenow bill, Vermont's law requires clear, on-
package labeling instead of allowing a confusing QR code. Under 
Vermont's law and this amendment, consumers can glance quickly at a 
product and be able to determine the GMO contents with no need of a 
smartphone or Internet connection.
  Once again, and very importantly, many major food companies are 
already complying with Vermont's law. Pick up a package of M&Ms, and 
there it is right now on the label, five words: ``partially produced 
with genetic engineering.'' Mars, which manufactures M&Ms, has done it, 
and it is not a problem. Other companies are already doing the same 
thing.
  What makes sense is to build on what Vermont has done, not come up 
with an unenforceable, confusing, weak piece of legislation paid for by 
the large food corporations in this country.
  This amendment making Vermont the national standard will also prevent 
the gaping loopholes in the Roberts-Stabenow language that will prevent 
labeling of the most common GMO foods. Unlike the Roberts-Stabenow 
language, this amendment defines ``food'' and ``genetic engineering'' 
in a way that would require labeling of foods derived from GMOs, such 
as starches, oils made from GMOs, sugar derived from GMO sugar beets, 
or high-fructose corn syrup. None of these types of products will 
require labeling under the Roberts-Stabenow language.
  Also, my amendment sets a specific percentage of GMOs in food to 
trigger the labeling requirement--nine-tenths of 1 percent, which is 
consistent with Vermont's law and European Union standards. Under the 
Roberts-Stabenow language, this determination will be left up to the 
USDA, which could require 10 percent before labeling or 51 percent. We 
just don't know at this point.

  My amendment also contains a legitimate enforcement provision 
consistent with Vermont's law. My amendment sets consistent penalties 
for improper labeling and provides for consumers to be able to sue to 
ensure enforcement.
  The issue of labeling of our food is not controversial. It is 
something the American people want. It is something that common sense 
dictates. The overwhelming majority of Americans favor GMO labeling, 
nearly 9 out of 10.
  People have a right to know what is in the food they eat. Instead, 
the needs of consumers, the needs of the American people have been 
completely disregarded in this legislation at the behest of major 
corporate interests and campaign donors. Congress must stand up to the 
demands of Monsanto and other multinational food industry corporations 
and reject the Roberts-Stabenow piece of legislation.
  My amendment would provide a meaningful alternative to the confusing 
and ineffective measure we are considering, and I ask that colleagues 
support my amendment.
  With that, I reserve----
  Mr. LEAHY. Before the Senator yields the floor, he talked about what 
Vermont did. Isn't it a fact that the Senate didn't hold one single 
hearing or have one single witness come before they set this bill; is 
that correct?
  Mr. SANDERS. My colleague from Vermont is absolutely correct. In 
Vermont, there was a lot of discussion, and there were a number of 
hearings, but not here in the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. LEAHY. In fact, the Vermont Legislature, is it not a fact, had at 
least 50 hearings with at least 130 witnesses?
  Mr. SANDERS. My colleague from Vermont makes a very, very important 
point. In Vermont, this issue was seriously discussed. Over 50 hearings 
were held, with different points of view and objections being raised.
  I would ask my colleague, just to confirm with me: How many hearings 
on this important and controversial bill were held here in the Senate?
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would answer my friend and colleague from 
Vermont--especially, as a member of the Committee on Agriculture, 
Nutrition, and Forestry, I am well aware of this--that there was not 
one single hearing, not one single witness.
  Unlike Vermont, with 50 hearings and 130 witnesses who expressed 
every single view, over 2 years of time and debate, we didn't have 2 
minutes of debate and discussion. Vermont did 2 years.
  Mr. SANDERS. So here is what we have. I thank my friend from Vermont 
for raising this issue. On the one hand, we have a State--the State of 
Vermont--which addressed this issue in a serious way, listening to all 
points of view, having the legislature go over this in a thorough 
manner. Then, here

[[Page S4883]]

we have the Senate, after many, many millions of dollars in lobbying 
efforts and campaign contributions, overriding the work of the State of 
Vermont and not having one hearing--not one hearing with consumers, 
environmental groups, farm organizations--and rushing it through in the 
last week or two before we adjourn for summer break.
  I thank the Senator from Vermont for raising that enormously 
important issue.
  With that, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today as the Senate considers 
legislation on an issue that is critically important to our Nation's 
food supply. From our producers in the fields to our families 
purchasing food in the aisles of the grocery stores, without the Senate 
action we are considering today, this country will be hit with a 
wrecking ball that will disrupt the entire food chain. We need to act 
now to pass our amendment to S. 764.
  This is a bipartisan--a bipartisan--approach that provides a 
permanent solution to the patchwork of biotechnology labeling laws that 
will wreak havoc on the flow of interstate commerce of agriculture and 
food products in our Nation's marketplace. That is what this is exactly 
about--the marketplace. It is not about safety. It is not about health 
or nutrition. It is about marketing. Science has proven again and again 
that the use of agriculture biotechnology is 100-percent safe.
  The Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Tillis, provided on the floor 
just a moment ago that, in fact, the Committee on Agriculture, 
Nutrition, and Forestry last year heard from the three Federal agencies 
tasked with regulating agriculture biotechnology--the USDA's Animal and 
Plant Health Inspection Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, 
and the Food and Drug Administration. Their work is based on sound 
science and is the gold standard for our policymaking, including this 
policy we are debating today--one of the most important food and 
agriculture decisions in recent decades. Many people say this issue is 
the biggest issue for agriculture in 20 years. I agree.
  At our hearing, the Federal Government expert witnesses highlighted 
the steps their agencies have already taken to ensure that agriculture 
biotechnology is safe--safe for other plants, safe for the environment, 
and safe for our food supply. It was clear that our regulatory system 
ensures biotechnology crops are among the most tested in the history of 
agriculture. At the conclusion of the hearing, virtually all of the 
members of the Agriculture Committee were in agreement. Not one 
disagreed. Thus, it is clear that what we are facing today is not a 
safety or a health issue, despite claims by a couple of my colleagues 
on the Senate Floor. It is a market issue.
  This is really a conversation about a few States dictating to every 
State the way food moves from farmers to consumers. This patchwork 
approach of mandates adds costs to national food prices. In fact, 
requiring changes in the production or on-package labeling of most of 
the Nation's food supply for a single State would impact citizens in 
each of our home States.
  A recent study on the impact of an on-package label estimates that 
the cost to consumers could total as much as $82 billion annually--$82 
billion--approximately $1,050 per hard-working American family. Let me 
repeat that. That is $1,050 per hardworking American family. Now is not 
the time for Congress to make food more expensive for anybody to eat or 
produce--not the consumer and certainly not the farmer.
  Today's farmers are being asked to produce more safe and affordable 
food to meet the growing demands at home and around a very troubled and 
hungry world. At the same time, they are facing increased challenges to 
production, including limited land and water resources, uncertain 
weather patterns, and pest and disease issues.
  Agricultural biotechnology has become a valuable tool in ensuring the 
success of the American farmer in meeting the challenge of increasing 
yield in a more efficient, safe, and responsible manner. In fact, 
thanks to modern agriculture technology, we have seen a 48-percent 
increase in corn yields. That is good for the farmer, that is good for 
the consumer, and that is good for a troubled and hungry world. There 
has been a 36-percent increase in soybean yields in the last 20 years. 
That is the value of agricultural biotechnology.
  Now, I have also heard--and I do understand the concern--from some of 
my colleagues about consumers and available information about our food. 
Some consumers want to know more about ingredients. This is a good 
thing. Consumers should take an interest in their food, where it comes 
from, and the farmers and ranchers that produce their food.
  This legislation puts forward policies that will help consumers find 
information--almost guaranteed. It does so without jeopardizing the 
technology upon which our farmers rely. More importantly, the 
legislation before us provides an immediate and comprehensive solution 
to the unworkable State-by-State patchwork of labeling laws. State 
consumer protection laws and anything beyond the wrecking ball that we 
see related to biotechnology labeling mandates are codified as exempt 
from preemption. We ensure that the solution to the State patchwork--
one thing we can all agree upon--is effective.
  The amendment focuses on human food that may or may not be 
bioengineered. We do not set up any new offices at the Department of 
Agriculture, and we minimize any impact on other agencies. Instead, we 
direct the Secretary to establish a uniform national disclosure 
standard through rulemaking. It sets national uniformity that allows 
for the free flow of interstate commerce, a power granted to Congress 
in the U.S. Constitution.
  Let me point this out. The commerce clause in article I, section 8, 
clause No. 3, provides that ``the Congress shall have Power . . . To 
regulate commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States and 
with the Indian Tribes.'' But note ``among the several states''--more 
than several States today.
  This labeling uniformity is based on science and allows the value 
chain--from farmer to processor to shipper to retailer to consumer--to 
continue as the free market intended. To accomplish national 
uniformity, we crafted a mandatory disclosure requirement. We are 
talking about mandatory disclosure, not just labeling. The Senate 
bipartisan agreement is mandatory disclosure with several options--text 
on package, a symbol, or an electronic link to a Web site that Senator 
Tillis so aptly demonstrated. The legislation is clear that the link 
cannot include any text on the package that could be used to denigrate 
biotechnology. It will simply say: ``Scan here for more food 
information.''
  We also allow for Web sites or telephone numbers to satisfy the 
requirement for small food manufacturers, and we completely exempt very 
small food manufacturers and restaurants from having to comply.
  The disclosure requirement applies to food subject to the Federal 
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act labeling requirements as well as some meat 
and poultry products. We do not include alcohol, as those items are 
subject to labeling requirements under a different authority at the 
U.S. Treasury. In this respect, alcohol is similar to other food that 
is labeled under a different authority than the Federal Food, Drug, and 
Cosmetic Act.
  The scope of this agreement includes human food, not animal feed. The 
language prohibits the Secretary from considering any food product 
derived from an animal to be bioengineered based only upon the animal 
eating bioengineered feed.
  It is important, as with any Federal legislation on this topic, for 
Congress to consider scientific fact and unintended consequences. We 
include a safety statement. The agreement ensures that the regulations 
will treat bioengineered food the same as its nonbioengineered 
counterpart. We agree that these products have been found safe through 
the Federal regulatory review process.
  I want to emphasize this, and I want my colleagues to understand 
this. This legislation has the support of more than 1,000 
organizations--large and small--representing the entire food chain, and 
that number continues to grow every day. Never before in the history of 
the Senate Agriculture Committee--and, I would venture of any

[[Page S4884]]

committee--have we seen such a coalition of constituents all united 
behind such an effort. Their message is clear: It is time for us to 
act. It is time for us to provide certainty in the marketplace. It is 
time for us to pass this amendment.
  I appreciate the bipartisan support of those on the committee who 
joined me by voting to approve our committee bill, those who supported 
a solution in March, and those who voted to consider this agreement. We 
have again made significant changes to address the concerns of the 
ranking member and others. Now, we all must carry this across the 
finish line. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan approach 
and protect the safest, most abundant, and affordable food supply in 
the world.
  Now, I want to say something else. I want to talk about the men and 
women whom the Agriculture Committee represents and whom everyone on 
the Agriculture Committee should champion and protect. I am going to 
describe that person to my colleagues on the floor, with reverence to 
Paul Harvey.

       And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise 
     and said, ``I need a caretaker.'' So God made a farmer.
       God said, ``I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, 
     milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat 
     supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a 
     meeting of the school board.'' So God made a farmer.
       ``I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf 
     and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody 
     to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, 
     have to wait on lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting 
     ladies and then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real 
     soon--and mean it.'' So God made a farmer.
       God said, ``I need somebody willing to sit up all night 
     with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and 
     say, `Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax 
     handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of 
     car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and 
     shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will 
     finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 
     `tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours.'' So God 
     made a farmer.
       God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double 
     speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop 
     in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke 
     from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.
       God said, ``I need somebody strong enough to clear trees 
     and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean 
     pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his 
     mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. 
     It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not 
     cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and 
     disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the 
     milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's 
     work with a five-mile drive to church.''
       ``Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft 
     strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and 
     then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to 
     spend his life `doing what dad does.' '' So God made a 
     farmer.

  It is our responsibility to protect that farmer, and to protect what 
he does to feed this Nation and a troubled world with the best quality 
food at the lowest price in the history of the world. So let us protect 
that farmer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I am pleased that it looks like we are 
going to be voting this afternoon on a measure that would, for the 
first time, give American families access to GMO information about the 
food they buy.
  As my colleague from Kansas prepares to leave the Chamber, I just 
want to express my thanks to him, to his staff, to Senator Debbie 
Stabenow of Michigan and her staff, and a lot of others, including 
members of my own staff, and the administration--especially Tom 
Vilsack, the Secretary of Agriculture--for the work that they and many 
others have done to bring us to this point in this important debate.
  I was with the Aspen Institute seminar visit to Tanzania about a year 
ago. We got into a discussion with a lot of young African leaders and 
scholars, and a number of Democratic and Republican House Members and 
Senate Members.
  The debate ended up going into an area I never expected it to go. We 
ended up talking about drought in Africa. We ended up talking about 
what is going on with climate change that exacerbates their problems 
with raising crops. We talked about how it might be possible for them 
to use genetically modified seeds to better endure and survive drought 
and to enable them to maybe raise some crops that would be healthier 
for their constituents. We ended up in an interesting debate on sound 
science with respect to sea level rise and climate change.
  The message from our Democrats who happened to be present at that 
seminar was this: Our Republican friends should be guided by sound 
science when it comes to climate change and sea level rise. Delaware is 
the lowest lying State in the country. We are especially mindful of 
this issue.
  Republicans, after we had reminded them of the need to rely on good 
science with respect to climate change and sea level rise, had this 
rejoinder for us Democrats. They said: Well, maybe if we were to agree 
to that, you guys--Democrats present--should agree to be guided by good 
science with respect to genetically modified organisms.
  As it turns out, close to 98 or 99 percent of scientists around the 
world believe that climate change is real, sea level rise is real, and 
we human beings are directly contributing to that. I am told that 98 or 
99 percent of the scientists on the other side of the issue with 
respect to genetically modified organisms have concluded--again, we 
have had recently, just in the last several weeks, additional 
confirmation of this--that most of the scientists in the world who 
follow this think we ought to be guided by sound science with respect 
to genetically modified organisms, and that food is safe for us to eat.
  I don't know if this is the home stretch yet. I hope, as we come down 
on the debate on this important issue of genetically modified organisms 
and the safety of our food, that we will keep in mind the debate that 
took place almost a year ago on the other side of the world.
  I have said to my colleagues around here any number of times that 
people ask me what is one of the proudest things that I have done in my 
life. I have discussed this issue. I don't know if the Presiding 
Officer remembers it. I am proudest of all of raising two--actually, 
three--boys who are now all grown up and off into the world on their 
own. My wife and I wanted to make sure they grew up healthy, sound, and 
strong. They had nutritious food to eat. As Governor of Delaware and 
chairman of the National Governors Association, I felt we did well, and 
I want to make sure that kids--not just my own kids but young people 
all over the world--and not so young people have the benefit of eating 
healthy and nutritious food.

  I understand the calls from parents who want to know more about the 
food they are putting on their tables in this country and other 
countries as well. I believe the Stabenow-Roberts compromise for GMO 
labeling will help all consumers make more informed choices no matter 
where they live in America.
  Part of our job in Congress is to ensure that our Federal regulations 
set forth a reasonable framework for American businesses, too, so they 
can grow and thrive. A week ago, our country's first human labeling law 
took effect in one State, Vermont, but that law regulates only food 
being sold within that State's lines.
  Again, I call myself a recovering Governor, but as a former Governor, 
I know a patchwork approach to regulations that apply to interstate 
commerce is very problematic. Businesses want and need certain 
predictability. For food businesses, large and small, waiting for each 
State to produce its own labeling laws, its own rules, would create a 
haphazard and totally unmanageable regulatory landscape.
  I believe it is absolutely critical that we act on the Federal level 
to create labeling requirements that give consumers the information 
they need and deserve without creating a logistical nightmare that 
would stifle American businesses. The question is, Can we have both or 
are they mutually exclusive of one another? I think we can have both.
  Under the Stabenow-Roberts compromise, in the next 2 years, all foods 
that contain GMOs will be labeled with a QR code that sends consumers 
directly to the producer's Web site and outlines clear information 
about what is in the product that consumers are about to buy or 
considering buying. That means consumers in the dozens of

[[Page S4885]]

States that haven't yet acted to require GMO labeling will have better 
information about their food, no matter where they buy it.
  Sometimes a little common sense goes a long way, and this is a 
commonsense solution to an issue our constituents asked us to address. 
Not only am I pleased by the agreement that we have reached, but I am 
also pleased by the way that we got here. My wife says I am an eternal 
optimist--maybe too optimistic some days, but I hope the bipartisan 
work we have done to get here, led by Senator Stabenow and Senator 
Roberts, reminds our constituents that they, too, can be optimistic 
about the ability of Congress to get things done.
  This comes on the heels of the bipartisan work done on the Toxic 
Substances Control Act, where Democrats and Republicans worked together 
with the administration to pass one of the best environmental laws that 
we have done maybe in decades in this country.
  Finally, I would like to address some of the critics of this 
compromise who assert that we didn't go far enough to protect Americans 
from GMOs. We talk often about the overwhelming scientific data that 
proves our climate is changing at a troubling rate and that humans are 
the primary drivers of that. On GMOs, the scientific data is also 
overwhelming.
  I mentioned earlier in my remarks that at a seminar at the African 
institute in Tanzania last year, both the Democrats and the Republicans 
exchanged ideas that both of us should be guided by sound science on 
GMOs or sea level rise climate change.
  More recently, in May of this year, the National Academy of Sciences 
released an independent report that determined genetically engineered 
crops are just as safe to eat as conventional crops. I will say it 
again. In May of this year, the National Academy of Sciences released 
an independent report that determined genetically engineered crops are 
just as safe to eat as conventional crops.
  More recently, more than 100 Nobel laureates sent a letter to 
Greenpeace, the United Nations, and governments around the world. What 
did the 100 Nobel laureates have to say? They urged all the folks that 
they wrote to end opposition to GMOs.
  I think our Federal Government should take a reasonable, principled, 
and science-based approach to addressing the issue of GMO labeling. 
That is exactly what this bipartisan bill seeks to do. I believe that 
is what it does.
  I thank our colleagues, Senators Roberts and Stabenow, and their 
staff for working so hard with ours and others to achieve a compromise 
that I think is a win for consumers, companies, and farmers. It shows 
the country that Congress can work together across the aisle to get 
things done.
  Mr. President, I want to change gears here for a moment if I could.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Will the Senator yield prior to his statement on another 
subject?
  Mr. CARPER. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. ROBERTS. I thank the Senator. This has been a long process--well 
over a year. We had the committee hearing within the Agriculture 
Committee months ago with the EPA, FDA, and many witnesses declaring 
that agricultural biotechnology is safe. Note I changed the name 
because GMO has become a pejorative. It is hard to fix that, but that 
is what it is--agricultural biotechnology. We went to work and passed a 
bill, 14 to 6. Then we tried to change the bill so that the minority 
could possibly vote for it. Unfortunately, we were not able to get the 
required number of votes for cloture.
  Back then, it would have been very appropriate, it seems to me, for 
anybody interested to bring their amendment to the floor. Senator 
Merkley is here. We offered--at least through staff--he tells me he 
didn't get the message, but I was for all amendments at that particular 
time. We didn't even get cloture.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. ROBERTS. I do not have the time. The Senator from Delaware has 
yielded to me. I will finish my statement in just a minute, if I can.
  Here we are with the July 1 deadline having been met, and here we are 
with the Vermont labeling law becoming, in effect, the national law. I 
know there are some for that. There was one Senator from the other side 
of the aisle, and that was the Senator from Delaware, who went to work 
to get a reasonable bill. This is a well-crafted compromise. If it is a 
well-crafted compromise between the ranking member and the chairman 
with appropriate people like the Senator himself working hard to get 
support for that, we should go ahead and get this done. I appreciate 
the willingness of the Senator to work in a bipartisan fashion, and I 
thank him again.
  Mr. CARPER. Reclaiming my time--boy, I am glad I yielded. Thank you 
so much for those words and for the opportunity to participate in this 
process.


                                  Isis

  Mr. President, I want to change gears to talk about another battle 
going on in another part of the world, and it is a battle to degrade 
and destroy ISIS. Recently on the Senate floor, I heard a couple of our 
colleagues in the majority, I believe, claim that the President, the 
current administration, is not doing enough to fight ISIS. However, I 
say to my friends--and they are my friends, they know that--that the 
majority are forgetting some of the key facts, and I just want to 
revisit that.
  The truth is, they are taking the fight to ISIS, and we are making 
serious progress in the battle to degrade and destroy them. As I like 
to say, it is not time to spike the football. We are not in the end 
zone. Maybe we are in the red zone, but progress is being made. I want 
to talk a little bit about that today.
  I want to start by directing my attention to this map. For folks who 
are trying to figure out what this map says, it says that this is Iraq, 
a big part of this area here is Iraq. Right down here is Iraq. Right 
here is Baghdad. That is Syria over here. We have Turkey up here, and 
Iran is over here on the other side of Iraq.
  A couple of years ago, these folks in ISIS decided they were going to 
establish their own caliphate, if you will, a country. That would be a 
theocracy guided by their perverted view of Islam, not the view held by 
most Muslims in the world.
  Islam is one of the great religions of the world. The more I learn 
about it, I am struck by the similarities between the faiths. I am 
Protestant. I am not sure what our Presiding Officer is, but we are 
here and are people of different faiths. Whatever your faith happens to 
be, almost any faith in the world--I don't care if you are Protestant, 
Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist; even Confucius used to embody 
and embrace the Golden Rule to treat other people the way you want to 
be treated. There is a section in the New Testament, Matthew 25, where 
we read about the least of us: When I was hungry, did you feed me? When 
I was thirsty, did you give me a drink? When I was naked, did you 
clothe me? When I was a stranger in your land, did you take me in? When 
I was sick and in prison, did you come and see me? There is a passage 
in the Koran that is actually very similar to what we have in the 
Bible, the New Testament.
  Nonetheless, the folks who have this perverted view of Islam launched 
an effort about 2 years ago in this area that we see here--I am going 
to call this a salmon-colored area, and the area that is more of a 
green color is the area that ISIS seized control of 2 years ago, and 
there are other pockets around these two countries, Syria and Iraq. 
That is what they took over--rolled right over the Iraqis. A lot of the 
Iraqi military units fled and left, and the leaders did too.
  We had a fight on our hands. The bad guys got within 20, 25 miles of 
Baghdad, and they got no further. The President of our country has 
helped lead the way to put together a 60-nation coalition. Some are 
Arab; some are Protestant or Catholic--mixed religions. A lot of 
different religions represent the coalition. Some are democracies; some 
are not. Some have a King or a Queen. It is an interesting group and a 
diverse group. But 60-some nations were put together.
  I mentioned before that I spent a fair number of years of my life as 
a naval flight officer, 5 years in a hot war in Southeast Asia during 
the Vietnam war and another 18 years beyond that right up until the end 
of the Cold War. I had the opportunity to participate in

[[Page S4886]]

missions that involved U.S. naval assets aircraft like the P-3 
aircraft, which I was a flight crew member of. I worked with 
submarines, U.S. naval submarines with the U.S. naval ships, and it is 
not always easy to do that. Communications are difficult. Conditions 
are difficult. When we tried to introduce and work with units from 
other branches of other countries' military units, other naval units, 
it was even more difficult.
  Imagine trying to put together a coalition and 60 different nations 
speaking different languages with different modes of operation, 
different aircraft, different ships, different artillery and trying to 
get us all to pull in the same direction to take on this battle. It has 
taken a while.
  You know what is happening now? Here is what has happened. The land 
that ISIS took over 2 years ago has been cut by almost half--47 
percent, almost half. While the area of Syria controlled by ISIS is a 
lot smaller than the land in Iraq, 20 percent of that land has been 
recaptured from ISIS.
  Last year, Iraqi counterterrorism forces, backed by U.S. air support, 
scored key victories in Ramadi to the west of Baghdad, 30, 40 miles to 
the west of Baghdad. And then a place called Tikrit--we remember Tikrit 
because it is the birthplace where Saddam Hussein grew up. In the last 
couple of weeks, there was some more good news. Fallujah, which is 
right here--these three cities, Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tikrit, make up 
what is called the Sunni Triangle. It is where a lot of Sunnis in Iraq 
live. It was once controlled by ISIS, and they have now fallen to the 
alliance, our forces.
  As we speak, Kurdish, Iraqi, Syrian democratic forces backed by U.S. 
Special Forces are training and making preparations to retake other key 
ISIS strongholds. Here is Baghdad. You go to the north, northwest, up 
here next to the areas controlled by the Kurds, which are part of Iraq 
but controlled by the Kurds, and over here--almost due west from Mosul, 
over here to Raqqa, which is the spiritual capital of ISIS. Those are 
where the fights are headed next.
  For weeks American airpower has conducted scores of airstrikes on 
these two ISIS strongholds, Mosul and Raqqa, in order to clear the way 
for our Iraqi and Syrian partners on the ground. We are using F-15 and 
F-16 aircraft--in some cases, carrier-based and out of the Persian 
Gulf. We are using drones and A-10s. We are using B-52s, which are 
being staged in a variety of places, including Qatar and as far away as 
a couple of thousand miles, I am told, to conduct precision strikes all 
over the planet to target ISIS.
  All in all, the United States and our allies have taken about 25,000 
ISIS fighters off the battlefield and killed more than 120 key ISIS 
leaders since the beginning of this conflict. Recent reports indicate 
that coalition allied forces kill an ISIS leader every 3 days on 
average. Last week, coalition airstrikes killed the ISIS deputy 
minister of war and ISIL military commander in Mosul.
  We haven't done it by ourselves. We have done this with a lot of 
partners. As I said earlier there are 60 in all. Our President, his 
administration, and our military folks have built an anti-ISIS 
coalition that consists of 60 countries, including some you expect to 
hear, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany, but, 
frankly, a lot you would not expect to hear about. The coalition also 
consists of some of Iraq's and Syria's Arab neighbors, such as Saudi 
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Egypt, just for starters. 
As a result of these partnerships, we have not only taken territory 
away from ISIS, but we have also cut off its main sources of supplies, 
its reinforcements, and its funding.
  In recent weeks, anti-ISIS forces have surrounded a place called 
Manbij, Syria, which is up here, just north of Raqqa, and cut off the 
route through Turkey that ISIS previously used to smuggle oil, money, 
and move fighters. As of June 29, less than a month ago--maybe a couple 
of weeks ago--about 300 airstrikes against the Islamic State's oil 
network in Iraq and Syria conducted over the last 2 years have cut the 
terrorist group's oil revenues by at least half. It is estimated that 
ISIS now collects about $15 million each month, down from $30 million 
and $42 million each month at its peak. Cash reserves held by ISIS have 
also been hit hard. Over the past year, coalition airstrikes have 
destroyed $500 million and $800 million in ISIS funds--cold cash. Our 
partnership has helped to keep ISIS from getting reinforcement from 
outside of Iraq and Syria too.
  The flow of foreign recruits has been dramatically reduced from a 
high of about 2,000 a month in 2014--coming from all around the world 
to joining the ISIS team--to 200 a month in June. It went from 2,000 to 
200 over the course of the last year. About a year or so ago in the 
United States, we had 10 Americans per month leave the United States to 
join the ISIS folks. Last month there was about one--one per month. 
This has happened because people all around--and certainly people in 
the United States--are learning the truth about ISIS. They don't want 
any part of it.
  In cyber space, over 125,000 pro-ISIS Twitter handles have been taken 
offline. For every pro-ISIS Twitter handle, there are now six anti-ISIS 
handles challenging ISIS's twisted ideology and criticizing its 
actions. That is a real game changer.
  At home, the FBI is cracking down on recruits as well. Over the past 
2 years, the FBI has arrested nearly 100 individuals on ISIS-related 
charges.
  Just because we have made clear progress on these fronts, it does not 
mean there is not more work to be done, because there is. There is a 
lot more work that needs to be done, and it is not going to be done by 
us. It is a shared partnership and the United States helps in a lot of 
ways, but this is not our responsibility alone.
  The recent ISIS-related attacks in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and 
Bangladesh show that ISIS still has the ability to mobilize its 
followers to carry out attacks on soft targets. The terror attack in 
Orlando last month serves as a reminder that disturbed and mentally 
imbalanced young Americans are susceptible to the twisted propaganda of 
ISIS.
  In November, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs Committee, renowned counterterrorism expert Peter Bergen told 
the committee that ``every American who's been killed by a jihadi 
terrorist in this country since 9/11 has been killed by an American 
citizen or resident.'' Think about that. Every person who has been 
killed by a jihadi terrorist in this country--in America--since 9/11 
has been killed by an American citizen or legal resident. Think about 
it. The threat doesn't come from Syrian refugees or those who travel 
here as tourists or on the visa waiver programs. The greatest threat to 
our country now comes from within--from American citizens and legal 
residents.
  When these young Americans carry out attacks in ISIS's name, much 
like the Orlando killer appears to have done, they help to project the 
image that ISIS is all-powerful and ever present.
  We need to do a better job of countering ISIS's narrative here in the 
United States. Right now, ISIS portrays a winner's message, or at least 
they sought to, even though the results on the battlefield are 
beginning to show otherwise.
  We need to make sure the truth is told about ISIS and all the defeats 
they are beginning to absorb. They are cowards, not heroes. They are 
oppressors and killers of Muslims. They imprison and enslave women. 
They are not protectors of Islam.
  As we help the Sunni Arab world free itself from the horror and 
oppression of ISIS, we must also ensure that the truth about ISIS gets 
out in order to undermine ISIS's recruitment propaganda. Congress can 
strengthen our ability to fight the ISIS narrative by empowering the 
Department of Homeland Security to build partnerships here at home.
  The Senate Homeland Security Committee passed legislation that I had 
worked on, along with others, that empowers the Department of Homeland 
Security to build partnerships with the Muslim community here and with 
faith leaders, civic groups, and other nonprofits. These partnerships 
will help to develop local solutions for countering ISIS messages and 
to stop the recruitment of young Americans.
  I will say in conclusion that the battle to defeat ISIS is far from 
over, but I think we are on the right track. We

[[Page S4887]]

need to make it clear every day that ISIS is not the winning team they 
present themselves to be. They might have been 2 years ago, maybe even 
a year ago, but not today. In fact, they are well on their way to 
becoming a losing team, and if we keep working hard and pulling 
together in the same direction with our coalition partners, they will 
be a losing team. All of us, Democrats and Republicans, have a role to 
play in making that clear to all Americans, especially those who are 
susceptible to ISIS's silent song. I hope my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle will keep that in mind as we go forward.
  I hope we can also work together without the partisanship of this 
election cycle to come up with constructive ways to help enhance the 
ability of this administration and our military men and women to join 
with the other 60 or so nations to finally defeat ISIS.
  With that, as I look around the floor, I believe one of my colleagues 
from Oklahoma is poised to address us, and I will yield for the 
Senator.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.


                           National Security

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, this has been a week really dealing with 
a lot of national security issues, both security here in our country 
and security around the world. It is a moment when we turn around and 
look at what is happening internationally. We think about ISIS and 
terrorism being confined to Syria and Iraq, and we face it here. We 
lose track that there are countries around the world dealing with this 
threat as well. What do we do about this, and where does it go from 
here?
  Let me recount the past couple of days. On Wednesday, two suicide 
bombers carried out an attack in Yemen. On Tuesday, an Indonesian 
suicide bomber, believed to be a supporter of the Islamic State, 
attacked a city there, killing himself and wounding a police officer 
and other security personnel. On Monday, there were three separate 
attacks in Saudi Arabia. On Sunday, there was a massive bomb explosion 
carried out in Baghdad that killed over 250 people--one bomb. Later 
that same day, there was another one, also in Iraq, that killed five 
people. On Friday of last week, in Bangladesh, our Nation watched in 
horror as gunmen stormed a restaurant in the diplomatic zone and killed 
20. They took those long-term hostages, pledging their allegiance to 
ISIS.
  We forgot what else happened on Friday. Those things happened around 
the world, but on Friday of last week, many people may not know that 
the FBI picked up a man named Mohamed Jalloh in Virginia. He was 
plotting to carry out a Fort Hood-style attack. He is a Virginia 
National Guardsman who purchased weapons. He had self-radicalized after 
watching Anwar al-Awlaki's videos. He pledged to ISIS and planned to 
carry out a large-scale attack in Virginia. The FBI learned about it 
and intercepted him before he could actually carry out his attack.
  This is a week about national security. There is a lot going on 
around the world, and we face a lot of threats.
  This week has also concluded the security issue of the United States 
dealing with drug policy. Behind the scenes, in the Senate, there is a 
long-term argument that is happening right now about whether we are 
going to have a drug war or a political war. We have a bill that deals 
with opioids. We are trying to help local law enforcement engage in 
this opioid conference, but our Democratic colleagues have held that 
bill up and won't allow it to move through the conference process. 
While we should be dealing with the fast-moving opioid crisis, we are 
actually dealing with the gridlock in the Senate.
  This is a bill that already overwhelmingly passed in a bipartisan 
method when it came through originally. It has only been strengthened 
since that time, and it now goes to conference. We want to be able to 
finish the conference report so we can continue to fight the drug war 
here in the United States, but instead we can't fight the drug war 
because of the political war going on behind the scenes. It is a 
national security issue.
  This is a national security issue. This week we dealt with 
immigration policy and what should be the simplest, most baseline area 
of immigration: Should individuals that have been convicted of a 
felony--even a violent felony--be deported out of the United States if 
they are here illegally? The argument from the other side of the aisle 
is this: We should not force communities to deport individuals who have 
been convicted of violent felonies.
  This week a year ago, specifically July 1, 2015, a young lady named 
Kate Steinle was walking down a pier in San Francisco with her dad. A 
gentleman walked up to her with a gun and shot and killed her on the 
pier. There was no connection or altercation. He just walked up and 
shot her. This man, who was in the country illegally, had already been 
convicted of seven felonies and had been deported five times.
  The San Francisco Police Department was forced to release him and did 
not give him to the Federal authorities because San Francisco is a 
sanctuary city. They believe that even if you have been convicted of 
violent felonies before--if you are in the United States illegally--you 
should not be turned over to Federal authorities.
  This body had a debate on that. This body's debate was this: Do we 
agree that there should be places in the United States where violent, 
multicount felons should be kept and protected in communities here even 
though they are here illegally? Republicans overwhelmingly voted that 
sanctuary cities should lose some of our Federal support. There should 
be an incentive to say that if someone in your community is a violent 
felon--these are rapists, individuals who have been convicted of 
domestic violence, individuals who have been convicted of DUI. Not 
every person in the country who is here illegally is a violent felon, 
but for those who are, can't we find the common ground to say that 
those individuals should be convicted and deported? This body 
apparently doesn't believe that.
  What should have been the most baseline argument about our domestic 
and national security can't get through this body because we can't 
agree on the simplest things. It is not all immigration policy. This is 
just: Should you deport people convicted of a violent felony? Should 
there be communities in the country where violent felons are protected 
and kept in the United States even if they are here illegally? If we 
can't agree on that simple policy, how in the world are we going to 
agree on any immigration policy?
  It has been a week about national security but also the threat of 
ISIS and the movement of terrorism around the world. We have gridlock 
here--dealing with basic immigration policy and national security, 
basic drug policy, and dealing with an opioid conference. It has also 
been a week dealing with national security in a very unusual way. It 
can be spun politically, but it is really a national security issue.

  The Director of the FBI completed an investigation over a holiday 
weekend and interviewed former Secretary of State Clinton on the 
Saturday of the Fourth of July weekend. He then came out after the day 
of the Fourth of July and said there is a lot of evidence of breaking 
the rules, there is a lot of evidence of being sloppy and careless, 
there is a lot of evidence of what he called extremely careless 
handling of sensitive, highly classified information, but would not 
recommend a prosecution.
  Now, why do I bring this up in a national security conversation? 
Because it does connect to our national security. It is not just a 
political issue.
  The first calls that I received after that statement came out from 
Director Comey were from people who have classified clearances. They 
work in the intelligence community, they work in the U.S. military, 
they work on our military installations, they are contractors, and they 
have gone through the extensive process of getting clearance. Those 
individuals started contacting me with one statement; that is, if I had 
done what the Secretary of State did--which is to take classified 
information out of the government computer, move it to my home 
computer, store it at home--I would have been fired and I would have 
lost my security clearance. In fact, I had an individual contact me who 
worked at one of my military installations and who recounted to me a 
story from just last year. Someone who worked at that particular 
installation had brought their

[[Page S4888]]

phone into work and had plugged it into the government computer so they 
could listen to music. That person was roundly fired because it put 
secure information at risk.
  This is a national security issue. It is the issue of what is the 
standard for how we are going to protect our Nation's secrets and 
whether there is a standard anymore. In a day when we face threats from 
around the world, in a day when we face threats from all over different 
regions and from Americans even here who are being self-radicalized, we 
should at least have the standard that classified information means 
classified information, and any individual, regardless of their last 
name, would be held to account. No one in America is above the law--at 
least that is what we used to say.
  The challenge we face now as a nation, with all of the threats, with 
all of the issues that we face, is, will we just argue about political 
things here and will political people get special favors, or will we 
take seriously the national security threats we face from terrorism 
abroad, from terrorists who are planning attacks here in the United 
States, from the opioid and heroin crisis we face, the immigration 
crisis we face? Will we take these things seriously?
  I would call this body out to say we cannot continue to just do 
politics here and not work toward resolutions on things that matter to 
the American people in the most basic things we face. This is a time we 
should continue to do the right thing. The American people need to not 
only see their government working, they need to know their government 
is actually doing something to protect the Nation--our borders, the 
drug wars, our national secrets, and our security dealing with radical 
Islamic terrorism from around the world. Let's confront these issues, 
not just debate them. Let's deal with them, and let's resolve them. 
Let's remind the American people that we can get things done to fulfill 
our basic constitutional responsibility and that we can carry out the 
law, regardless of a person's last name.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                     Working Together in the Senate

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, let me pick up from where the 
distinguished Senator from Oklahoma ended. This Senate and the House 
are capable of doing some awfully good bipartisan work that helps the 
American people, and we do a lot of it.
  The Senator from Louisiana--the Presiding Officer today--has been 
working with the Senator from Connecticut, a Democrat. They have 
different political persuasions, and they have us very close to passing 
a very important mental health bill in the Senate--one that passed the 
House yesterday. They have worked hard on that. We are going to get 
that done this year. I would like to do it next week, but if not, we 
should be able to do it in September.
  Earlier today, I went to the National Education Association annual 
convention, where there were 10,000 teachers from all over the country, 
and they gave the Friend of the NEA Award to Senator Murray of 
Washington State and to me. Thirty years ago, when I was Governor of 
Tennessee, I would have gotten the ``public enemy of the NEA'' award. 
But what they like and what teachers and Governors and chief State 
school officers and parents like was that last year we came together 
and fixed No Child Left Behind. We stopped Washington from telling 
schools so much about what to do and restored that responsibility where 
it ought to be--with teachers and parents and Governors and 
legislators. We have been thanked for that because it affects 50 
million children and 3\1/2\ million teachers and 100,000 public 
schools. We did our job.
  So there is mental health, there is fixing No Child Left Behind, and 
we are working on something called 21st century cures. The House of 
Representatives has passed it. Again, the Senator from Louisiana has 
been working on an important part of it having to do with electronic 
medical records as an example. This has the opportunity to be by far 
the most important legislation we pass this year, and we will pass it 
because it is part of Speaker Ryan's agenda; the majority leader, 
Senator McConnell, wants to pass it; and the President of the United 
States is interested in it because of his focus on precision medicine 
and the Vice President's focus on Cancer Moonshot. There is funding for 
the BRAIN Initiative, which has to do with Alzheimer's. These are 
breathtaking discoveries which we are on the verge of in America and 
which would affect millions of people--research for that and then 
moving them through the regulatory and investment process and into the 
medicine cabinets.
  I saw a Forbes poll the other day that showed that 82 percent of the 
American people would like for Congress to do more on biomedical 
research. They agree on that. We are doing that.
  So there are three things: fixing No Child Left Behind, mental 
health, and 21st century cures. Then we get to opioids and we get to 
Zika. So what has happened here? This reminds me of the Hatfields and 
the McCoys in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee. They fought so 
long, they forgot what they were fighting about. They just killed each 
other because that is what their grandfathers did.
  We have two issues here of intense interest to the American people, 
and we are on the verge of a significant step to help. The first is 
Zika. The Zika virus is terrifying young women in our country. They are 
postponing their pregnancies. They are afraid to have babies. They are 
afraid their babies will be born with deformities because we have found 
that if women have the Zika virus, some women have babies who have 
deformities when they are born. There will be a vaccine for that by 
2018, perhaps. That is part of the 21st century cures initiative I was 
just talking about--more money for the National Institutes of Health to 
speed that along. But between now and then, we need to take every step 
we need to take to help keep the Zika virus from infecting as many 
people as we can.
  This is a very simple disease. It is carried by a mosquito, and if a 
mosquito bites you, you get the Zika virus. For many people, it makes 
no difference, but for pregnant women, it could be a problem. It is 
July, and the mosquitoes are out, and it is time to eradicate the 
mosquitoes. The Centers for Disease Control asked us for money, and so 
we passed $1.1 billion here, money for Zika. We are ready to pass $1.1 
billion. Because of a small provision the House of Representatives put 
in that has to do with who is a Medicaid provider in Puerto Rico--there 
are many Medicaid providers in Puerto Rico who can go about this 
business in July and August and September to deal with trying to keep 
the mosquitoes away. Our friends on the other side of the aisle won't 
let us pass the bill.
  Now, let's stop and think about this. This is the Hatfields and 
McCoys at its worst. This is not the same spirit we had when fixing No 
Child Left Behind. It is not the same spirit we had working with the 
President and Speaker Ryan and Senator McConnell on 21st century cures. 
It is not the same spirit Senator Murphy and Senator Cassidy have shown 
in taking grave differences over mental health and putting them in in a 
way that we will get some advances on that this year. There is no 
excuse whatsoever for delaying the spending of $1.1 billion to help 
pregnant women and other families avoid the Zika virus this summer. We 
don't need mosquito control in the winter; we need it in the summer. 
And we need to pass it now because we leave and go away on our recess 
and come back in September.
  There may be a provision in the bill that some of us would have 
written a different way. Maybe some of us would like some more money. 
But the provision that is offensive to some people is a very small 
provision. There are Medicaid providers all over Puerto Rico who can 
deal with this part of the money, and there is no excuse for not 
approving the $1.1 billion that we are ready to spend for Zika, period, 
and it is wrong for the Democrats to block that. It is wrong as it can 
be, and it is not in the right spirit.
  I think I have a reputation here for trying to get results. I would 
say to my friends on the other side of the aisle: Please stop and think 
about this. This is the Hatfields and McCoys example that the American 
people really don't like. We are on the verge of doing something that 
would help a lot of Americans, especially young women, and we ought to 
do it. We ought to do it today or next week, and we surely

[[Page S4889]]

should not go home without having done it.
  The other thing we are on the verge of doing well is helping deal 
with opioids. Again, we are in a Hatfields-and-McCoys situation, 
apparently. I hope we avoid it, but we may be, and I would like to 
avoid that as well. We have talked a lot about the opioids abuse. I 
know what happens in Tennessee. Opioid overdose is killing more people 
every year than car wrecks or gunshots--car wrecks or gunshots. I had a 
roundtable in Knoxville several months ago. It was filled with people--
judges, parents, doctors, hospital managers. Everybody is overwhelmed 
with this. They want some help in doing it. We can't fix it from here, 
but we can support those on the frontlines, and we are doing it. We are 
making some changes.
  We have come back to Secretary Burwell and the President and said: 
Change the provision on the pain management survey that hospitals are 
telling us encourage doctors to overprescribe opioids. Well, at first 
they didn't listen, but to the President's credit and to Secretary 
Burwell's credit, they did it; they listened and they did it at the 
urging of Congress.
  They have increased the level of prescriptions that treatment doctors 
can prescribe. That was something Senator Paul, Senator Markey, and 
Democrats and Republicans in the House wanted to do. We might do more 
of it, but that was the TREAT Act.
  Then we came up with a bipartisan opioid bill in the Senate and in 
the House. It has contributions from half the Democrats and many of the 
Republicans. In the House, it passed 400 to 1. In the Senate, it passed 
94 to 1. Pardon me, it was 400 to 5 in the House and 94 to 1 here. It 
has more than 200 groups across the country who say opioid abuse is an 
epidemic and a crisis, so let's fix it. So we have taken a substantial 
step to fix it.
  Yesterday we approved a merger of what the House did and the Senate 
did, and both will come to the House and next week to the Senate for 
approval.
  One would think that something that had passed the Senate 94 to 1, 
when it comes back for approval, would pass again 94 to 1. One would 
think that something as urgent as dealing with opioid drug abuse--an 
epidemic, as I said, that is killing more people every year in my State 
than gunshots, killing more people every year in my State than car 
wrecks--one would think we would want to do something about it, 
particularly when we have worked hard and we have a very good package. 
Two hundred of the advocacy groups in this country who work on opioid 
abuse like what we have done.
  So what is the problem? Well, our friends on the other side say you 
need to fund it. We are funding it, and they helped fund it. Over the 
last 3 years, count the last two Congresses where the money was already 
appropriated, in other words, it is there to spend; count the amount of 
money the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved, we have 
increased funding for opioids already by 542 percent. For those working 
on their math, that is five times more than we were doing 2\1/2\ years 
ago. Then the House of Representatives came along today and said: We 
want to go even further than that. That is in the regular 
appropriations process. That is how we do our business here.
  For example, last year, as I mentioned, we fixed No Child Left 
Behind. The President called it a Christmas miracle. Everybody is happy 
about it. It doesn't spend a penny. It reformed the education law. We 
spend the money in the appropriations process.
  Every year we pass a Defense authorization bill. It reforms 
everything that has to do with keeping us safe in the country, but we 
don't spend a penny. That is in the appropriations process.
  We have an energy bill we are going to conference on. It doesn't 
spend a penny. That is in the appropriations process.
  So we are spending money on opioids. We are spending money on 
opioids. A five times increase over 2\1/2\ years, in addition to policy 
that 200 groups support and that passed the Senate 94 to 1. Now, some 
say there should be more. I agree. I would like to spend even more for 
opioids. I would like to see a more significant amount of money for 
State grants to help with opioids because that is where the bottom line 
is, but there are a lot of discussions going on about doing that. There 
is some discussion about doing that in the 21st century cures bill, 
perhaps. We talked about it and even voted on it last year. Republicans 
put through a bill in our so-called reconciliation process in which all 
but five Republicans in the Senate and House voted for $750 million 
each year for 2 years for opioids. That is $750 million each year for 
opioids. That is $1.5 billion the Republicans voted for. The President 
vetoed it because it also repealed ObamaCare. We thought we were 
getting two good things--repeal ObamaCare and support opioids. Of 
course, the President disagreed with that. This isn't all on Democrats 
or Republicans because we have also voted for more money for opioids.
  But let's get out of this Hatfields-and-McCoys posture in this last 
week or 10 days before the convention starts when we are dealing with 
the lives of so many Americans. Every Senator who talked yesterday at 
the conference report had some story of someone from his or her State 
who had died from an opioid abuse--several from one family in several 
cases. Everyone has that story. Then how can we dare go home next week 
without having passed a policy that everyone who understands the 
subject says will help, in terms of prevention and State grants and 
treatment and a variety of other things, and when we have increased 
funding by five times over 2\1/2\ years--how can we dare go home 
without having passed that?
  Can we continue to talk about even more funding? Yes, I am ready to 
do that. I would like to do it. I would like to find a way to do it, 
but that doesn't mean we stop doing what we can do now. So I am on the 
floor today--and let me just remind my friends on the other side of the 
aisle, this opioids conference is not a Republican bill. It is filled 
with Democratic priorities.
  Mr. Whitehouse is the lead sponsor, the Senator from Rhode Island. He 
is passionate about it. There are 44 Democratic Senators who voted for 
his version of it. Senator Warren is the lead sponsor for the Reducing 
Unused Medication Act. It is in the package. Senator Durbin led an 
amendment regarding the opioid action plan at the FDA that is included. 
Senator Shaheen and nine other Democratic Senators led the National All 
Schedules Prescription Electronic Reauthorization which is included. 
Congressman Sarbanes has a bill on expanding access through cold 
prescribing. Senator Casey introduced a plan of safe care improvement 
that was included. Senators Brown, King, and Manchin are cosponsors of 
a Healthy Babies Act that was included. Senators Brown, King, Casey, 
and Feinstein were coauthors in another provision. We all put this 
together. We all care about it. The people we work for all need our 
help. We should pass it. We should pass it.
  To come up with a lame excuse that we are not funding it when, in 
fact, we are--five times more over 2\1/2\ years--that is not the kind 
of thing that will gain respect for the U.S. Senate.
  I am here today as someone who spends most of his time trying to get 
results in this body, and often achieves results. I do that only 
because of relationships with Democratic Members as well as Republican 
Members. I told the National Education Association today to give Patty 
Murray a big hand for being the friend of the NEA on fixing No Child 
Left Behind because it would not have happened without her.
  I would say that when we pass the opioids conference, give a big hand 
to Senators Durbin and Shaheen and Congressman Sarbanes and especially 
Senator Whitehouse, Senator Casey, and Senator Warren because they all 
made major contributions to this, they voted for the funding over the 
last 2 years, and I am sure they will this year, which will go up at 
least five times--five times.
  So let's put the Hatfields and McCoys back in Kentucky and Tennessee. 
Let's say young women all over the country are terrified by the Zika 
virus. Let's spend $1.1 billion or make it available for the Centers 
for Disease Control now to help. Let's take this opioids conference 
report we are on the verge of passing that we are all for, and let's do 
it and go home. And let's add to the fixing No Child Left Behind, the 
21st century cures progress, the mental health progress, our work on 
opioids abuse, and our work on Zika. That

[[Page S4890]]

would be what the American people would expect of us, and I hope that 
by the end of next week, we find a way to do it.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from West Virginia.


               Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Bill

  Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. President, for recognizing me, and I want 
to thank the chairman of the HELP Committee, the Senator from 
Tennessee, who has in the Senate made a very passionate argument on why 
we should be passing the bill that contains the Zika funding but also 
for the opioid and heroin abuse overdose issue that we have in this 
country.
  He did mention the Hatfields and McCoys more than a few times in 
reference to Tennessee and Kentucky, and I will throw West Virginia in 
there because we have a good history of Hatfields and McCoys. We 
understand a feud, and I don't like to see a feud over these issues 
either. This is about health care, women and babies, and these are 
families who are torn apart by this scourge of opioid and heroin abuse.
  I would like to talk about the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery 
Act, known as CARA, and strongly urge my colleagues to lay down the 
feud and have common sense. I am going to talk about why this is so 
very important.
  This is a comprehensive step forward. It has been worked on for 
years. This is not a fly-by-night bill. This is a very comprehensive 
bill, a national response to the drug epidemic that we see like a fire 
rushing across America. It expands prevention and education efforts and 
promotes resources for treatment and recovery. I say often there is no 
one solution to this problem. There is a spectrum of solutions, and 
CARA addresses a spectrum of solutions. It helps law enforcement 
respond, provides resources for treatment, alternatives to 
incarceration. I know many Senators have been to see and visit drug 
court programs that have had successful graduations. They have gotten 
people back on their feet. They operate in West Virginia and many other 
States.
  I was very pleased to see many elements of the Senate-passed bill 
included in the final conference report. Members on both sides of the 
aisle and the Senator from Tennessee talked about many of those Members 
who have worked hard to create the realities of those living with and 
impacted by addiction. The bill is just a commonsense response so let's 
have a commonsense vote in response to the commonsense bill.
  For me, my personal passion has been the ability to craft several 
provisions that are included in this conference bill, one that would 
provide for safer, more effective pain management services to our 
veterans. Too many of our veterans are having opioid abuse and opioid 
overdoses in conjunction with care at the VA.
  Another provision from Senator Kaine from Virginia would coprescribe 
naloxone, a drug that would reverse the effects of opioid overdose with 
prescription opioids. Another provision would increase access to 
important followup services. Again, it is another bipartisan amendment 
to prevent overprescribing. There is also a provision that would 
improve acute pain-prescribing practices. You have acute pain which is 
different than having constant pain. What are the prescribing protocols 
for that? We have too many stories of addiction that started with 
patients taking painkillers after suffering a minor injury or a minor 
surgery. Also, there are provisions that would allow doctors to 
partially fill certain opioid prescriptions. Senator Warren from 
Massachusetts and I worked together on this. This helps to limit the 
availability of unused painkillers.
  Lastly, a provision I worked on with my colleague from West Virginia 
on the House side, Congressman Jenkins, would protect babies who are 
born exposed to opioids during pregnancy and get them the specialized 
care they need. We see it in Lily's Place in Huntington, and we need to 
have this across the country.
  In March, we stood together and passed this bill 94 to 1, with broad 
bipartisan support. CARA has had broad bipartisan support in the House 
as well, but not one single Democrat signed the conference report. What 
changed? What happened? I don't know. Out of the blue, after they had 
already voted for this, they demanded a new mandatory funding--which 
means a different type of funding out of the Appropriations Committee 
was not added to this bill in conference. Some apparently believe that 
without this funding, CARA is not worth passing. I strongly disagree 
for the reasons I am going to line out. This is not the view of the 
over 200 treatment organizations that are in favor of this conference 
report--groups such as the Addiction Policy Forum, the American 
Psychological Association, the National Association of Counties, the 
National Association of Addiction and Treatment Providers. These groups 
are calling for quick action on this conference report. They wrote a 
letter stating ``the report is truly a comprehensive response to the 
opioid epidemic which includes critical policy changes and new 
resources.''
  The letter continues, ``As you know, 129 Americans die each day as a 
result of a drug overdose and this epidemic affects the public health 
and safety in every community across the country,'' not to mention the 
devastation, and I have seen it in my own communities, to families all 
across this Nation. ``This bill is the critical response we need.''
  As a member of the Appropriations Committee, we all worked hard to 
ensure our States have the resources they need to win this fight, and I 
will not stop in this fight. The appropriations bills we have passed in 
committee provide substantial new resources. Under these bills, total 
funding to address heroin and opioid abuse will more than double the 
2015 levels.
  You can see on this chart that in 2015 it was $220 million. In 2016, 
we had a 46-percent increase to $321 million. In the bill that came out 
of the Senate Appropriations Committee that had bipartisan support, 
there was a 46-percent increase to $470 million. Those are significant 
resources that can help and will help in the treatment and gets money 
to our providers and to States for block grants.
  Let's look at HHS discretionary appropriations that we passed in the 
appropriations bill that passed bipartisan. In 2015, we appropriated 
$41 million. In 2016, we increased that funding to $136 million, a 237-
percent increase. This problem has been escalating across our country, 
and you can see it reflected in the dollars we are spending; in 2017, 
$262 million, which is a 93-percent increase. These are significant. It 
goes to problems that help with research, treatment, and community 
health centers. This is a very significant rise.
  Our last chart shows what is in the conference report we are now 
considering. It goes out of the Senate at 78 million more dollars. The 
conference report comes back with $181 million, a 132-percent 
increase. Again, the urgency of what we are seeing is reflected in the 
real dollars we are willing to spend, so don't listen to the argument 
that no money is being spent. It couldn't be further from the truth. 
This is what has been decided and agreed upon in the Appropriations 
Committee in a bipartisan way to deal with this very difficult problem.

  I think that 94 Members of this body already voted for this $78 
million. Why in the world would we continue this feud that has been 
created and is bubbling up in a political fashion and turn our backs on 
a 132-percent increase in this conference report?
  As I have shared on the floor several times before, this problem is 
particularly hard-hitting in the State of West Virginia, the State I 
represent. Unfortunately, West Virginia leads the Nation in drug-
related overdose deaths--more than twice the national average. I 
mentioned that 129 Americans die every day. That means there are people 
dying in West Virginia in larger numbers per capita than in any other 
State in the Union. It also means we shouldn't be taking the time for 
partisan politics and delay the passage of a much needed piece of 
legislation.
  I say this all the time because I believe it to be true. I hope it is 
not. I believe we are in danger of losing an entire generation to this 
scourge if we don't act with force, together, and make sure that we not 
only fund our programs but that we do the comprehensive approach to it 
that we see in this CARA bill.

[[Page S4891]]

  I was on the floor yesterday talking about how we had witnessed 
Senate Democrats playing politics with critical funding for Zika, and 
now we are seeing a repeat. I hope we do not go through the same 
scenario. Let's not play political games with a veteran depending on 
the VA's ability to help them treat their opioid addiction or the 
newborn born dependent on opioids or the addict who is willing to seek 
treatment and needs the help CARA will provide. They do not deserve to 
be held hostage to a political situation.
  I will proudly support the passage of the CARA conference report, and 
I encourage all of my colleagues to do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, one of the great privileges I have serving 
in the U.S. Senate is standing up every day on behalf of Montana 
agriculture. In fact, across the great State of Montana, signs of our 
State's strong agricultural heritage are at virtually every turn, from 
wheat and sugar beet fields, to grazing cattle and sheep. It is truly 
impossible to miss the expansiveness of our State's No. 1 economic 
driver, and that is agriculture.
  Agriculture is more than just an economic driver of our State, it is 
a way of life for thousands of Montana families. It provides for a 
safe, reliable, and affordable food supply not only for our Nation but 
for the world. It supports tens of thousands of jobs throughout the 
State. Let me say that again. It supports tens of thousands of jobs in 
the State of Montana.
  Over the past several weeks and months, I have heard directly from 
stakeholders in Montana--from the Montana Farm Bureau, the Montana 
Grain Growers Association, the Montana Sugar Beet Growers, the Montana 
Retailers Association, the Montana Chamber of Commerce, as well as 
researchers at Montana State University, my alma mater, a land-grant 
university. All demonstrated how their livelihoods would be negatively 
impacted if a single State on the east coast could be allowed to have 
such wide-raging impacts on jobs in Montana, as well as the price we 
pay at the grocery store.
  I believe that a State like Vermont and the junior Senator from 
Vermont should not dictate the laws that govern our food and affect the 
prices Montanans pay at the checkout line.
  Defenders of Vermont's fringe law and the ideology behind it ignore 
hardships on agricultural jobs. They ignore hardships on family 
incomes. They ignore scientific consensus. They ignore the existing 
transparency tools and the new ones created by this bipartisan 
compromise legislation.
  Montanans were clear that Congress needed to act. While this bill is 
by no means perfect, its passage is important to prevent increased 
costs for businesses and higher prices at the checkout stands for 
families.
  I have to say that I am outraged that the defenders of Vermont's law 
ignore these hardships. In eastern Montana, sugar beets are grown using 
biotech, and they are an economic driver for the State, and they are 
the source of thousands of jobs. The sugar beet industry contributes 
about $70 million a year to the Montana economy, as well as sugar 
factories in Billings and Sidney.
  As Shane Strecker, the director of the Southern Montana Sugar Beet 
Growers, put it, ``Without biotechnology, the hundreds of jobs 
Montana's sugar beet industry supports would not exist.''
  Make no mistake--this Vermont law is an attack on Montana's way of 
life, it is an attack on Montana's farm and ranch operations, and I am 
not going to stand for it. I will stand up for Montana and continue to 
fight to ensure that Montana's agricultural products are not unfairly 
and arbitrarily discriminated against. As always, I am proud to stand 
with Montana farmers, to stand with Montana ranchers, to stand with 
Montana agriculture, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                            Wyoming's Budget

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the tough 
situation my home State of Wyoming finds itself in and to urge my 
colleagues to take a page from Wyoming's book.
  Last week, Wyoming's Governor proposed cutting $248 million from the 
State budget because Wyoming has seen a reduction in revenue. To my 
friends from urban States, $248 million might not sound like a lot of 
money, but that amounts to 8 percent of Wyoming's budget.
  The downturn in energy development--particularly coal--reduced 
Wyoming's revenue last January, when the legislature met, and they had 
to make cuts. Then new figures came out after the legislature was over 
requiring the Governor to make cuts to meet the new level of revenue 
that there is, which is requiring him to make additional cuts of 8 
percent.
  Around here, we don't make cuts; we reduce the amount of increase a 
program gets and we call that a cut.
  The Governor had a very clever way of prioritizing. He asked every 
agency to give him a list of the things they are doing and suggest 
where they would take a 1-percent cut, a 5-percent cut, and a 10-
percent cut. Then all he had to do was compare the lists. If it wound 
up on all three lists, it wasn't that important. If it was only on the 
1-percent list, maybe there was some value to that program.
  That is the chart Wyoming is using to make their 8 percent cuts. That 
doesn't leave easy cuts for the Governor to make, but the Governor--
while he acknowledged that he didn't like to cut, he did what he is 
supposed to do, and that is to lead the State.
  Unfortunately, the Federal Government has failed to do the same. We 
all agreed to the Budget Control Act in 2011, which called for average 
annual cuts that wound up--the one time we have done it--being 7 
percent to 9 percent. But you have to remember that is from an 
increased baseline, not a total cut, and it happened in the fourth 
quarter of the year because we didn't get the spending bills done in 
time, which is the norm around here. But if you have to take a 2-
percent cut in the last quarter of the year, you are making an 8-
percent cut of the money that you have left. That is not far off from 
what Wyoming faces, and we have a lot more money and a lot more 
programs to work with to find those cuts at the Federal level. In fact, 
we have 260 programs that I keep talking about that have expired that 
we spend $293.5 billion on. I talked about that enough a year ago that 
we got that down to $256 billion, but now we are spending $310 billion 
on expired programs.
  Wyoming's annual budget is $1.5 billion, compared to the Federal 
discretionary budget--those are the program we get to make decisions 
on--of $1,100 billion. Wyoming has about 8,500 State employees, 
compared to about 2.7 million Federal civilian employees. If Wyoming 
can find a way to cut its budget, the Federal Government should be able 
to do the same. But instead of leading the way, people in this body and 
the House and the administration acted like the sky was falling after 
they agreed to the Budget Control Act. As a result, while Wyoming stays 
on firm financial footing, the United States has gone from owing $14 
trillion--that is $14,000 billion--in 2014 to owing $19 trillion--
$19,000 billion--today, and we are on track to owe $29 billion by 2026.
  Here is where one of the difficulties comes in. We are at $19 
trillion and on our way to $20 trillion. If you were paying 1 percent 
interest on $20 trillion, that would be $200 billion a year. We are 
actually paying a little bit more than that already, but the norm for 
the Federal Government is 5 percent. If that $200 billion in interest 
becomes five times that amount, it becomes $1,000 billion in interest. 
I just mentioned that we only get to make decisions on $1,100 billion--
actually, it is $1,070 billion. So if interest rates increase and we 
pay $1,000 billion in interest, we would have $70 billion left to fund 
the military, education, commerce, roads, everything that the Federal 
Government does right now.
  We have to reverse that course and address the Federal Government's 
insatiable appetite for spending, which is leading to America's mammoth 
national debt. I have several ideas on how we can make reasonable but 
real progress on our debt.
  First, we need to take a page from Wyoming's playbook. My home State 
has acknowledged how much money it has and is making targeted cuts to 
live within its means.

[[Page S4892]]

  Unlike the Federal Government, they aren't trying to make the cuts 
hurt politically so they can get pressure from people to spend more and 
more. Let me explain. When we had the government shutdown because the 
spending bills weren't done a few years ago, the Administration shut 
down the national parks, which, incidentally, raise money for the 
Federal Government.
  In Jackson Hole where the Tetons are, the federal government actually 
put up barriers so that people couldn't use the parking lot to take 
pictures. They also put up signs that said you can't park along the 
road. I had to ask the Park Service where they got the money to put up 
the barriers and I had to ask them why they put up the barriers to 
begin with.
  They said: Well, we didn't want people putting their garbage there 
because there would be nobody to pick up the garbage.
  I said: That is easy. Remove the garbage cans. There is no cost to 
that, and nobody will have to pick up any garbage.
  But that's not the way the Federal Government does things. They don't 
look for the easy solution; they look for the most painful one. They 
even barricaded off the World War II Memorial here during the 2013 
shutdown.
  We furloughed a bunch of people during that time, but when they came 
back to work, we paid them for the time they were off. It really cost a 
lot to try to save a little bit of money and not get our work done on 
time.
  We should learn to cut the worst first, not the best first, because 
if you cut the best, you have people complaining and they get the money 
reinstituted.
  Governor Mead is making smart cuts. He is proposing smaller cuts for 
the department of corrections because that agency already saw its 
budget cut severely in March. The Department of Family Services faces a 
smaller cut because it serves as the State's safety net. And the Public 
Defender's Office isn't expected to see any cuts because they are 
already strapped for resources.

  The Federal Government should be doing the same thing and cutting the 
worst first. I would argue that we should focus on identifying and 
eliminating the wasteful spending that occurs here in DC before we look 
to important programs and services in our home States, but this isn't 
something we should guess at. Like Wyoming, we should require all 
government departments and agencies to list what they do best and what 
they do worst, although I have never seen anyone admit to anything they 
do worst. So I would suggest we do the prioritization system like 
Wyoming went through where every agency has to list all the programs 
they do and suggest which ones they would cut at 1 percent, which ones 
they would cut at 5 percent, and which ones they would cut at 10 
percent. That way we could tell which programs agencies felt were 
really the most valuable to fund and force agencies to make the easier 
cuts first instead of cutting the programs we need the most. That way, 
we can maintain what we do well and cut what we don't. We need to 
prioritize how we spend taxpayers' dollars, just like Wyoming.
  Second, we need to implement my penny plan, which cuts overall 
spending by 1 percent--that is one cent out of every dollar we spend--
and cap future spending so that government lives within its means. If 
we did that, within 5 years we could balance the budget.
  Wyoming is finding a way to cut 8 percent. Why can't this body agree 
to cut 1 percent each year until our revenue is the same or less than 
expenditures? I am pretty sure after the first year people would say: 
You know, that wasn't too bad; we can live with that. And I think they 
would suggest we do two cents instead of one cent and get this done 
faster so that the next generation has hope for the same kind of 
country we have enjoyed.
  Lastly, Congress needs to thoroughly consider and review its 
spending. The Wyoming Legislature considers its spending bills on time 
because they have created incentives to encourage it, and they use a 2-
year spending cycle that provides more certainty and predictability 
than an annual cycle. Congress should follow Wyoming's lead by forcing 
timely consideration of regular appropriations bills--spending bills--
and locking in that funding for 2 years instead of 1. A biennial 
process would also allow more time to review the details of proposed 
spending, eliminate duplication and waste and ensure the elimination of 
the worst first.
  Mr. President, I would like to make one point to differentiate the 
problem Wyoming faces from the problem we face here. Wyoming is facing 
spending cuts because of declining revenues from oil, gas, and coal, 
which provide 70 percent of the State's budget. Those reductions are 
due to direct actions this administration has taken to make it harder 
to drill for oil and gas and to mine for coal.
  But at the Federal level, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a 
spending problem. This year alone, we have seen attempts to increase 
spending by tens of billions of dollars without offsets. We cannot 
spend our way to prosperity. We definitely need to look at expired 
programs.
  I sit up nights worrying about our Nation's $19 trillion debt and how 
it will affect our children and grandchildren. We have run out of money 
and are living on what we borrow from other countries. If we don't get 
serious about cutting spending soon, the programs people enjoy and rely 
on won't just shrink, they will disappear entirely--again, think about 
my example of what happens if we go to 5 percent interest for this 
country.
  It is long past time for us to apply reasonable constraints on our 
spending, and if we need a blueprint of how to do it, we should look to 
my home State of Wyoming.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. 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. McCONNELL. Mr. President, for all Members of the Senate, let me 
sum up where we are. There are three votes left to be cast. It is 
cleared on this side of the aisle to have all three of those votes 
momentarily. If there are objections to the consent request I am about 
to offer, the three votes would occur at 10:20 tonight. But whether we 
do it now or we do it then, there are three votes to finish the bill.
  This bill is a product of a negotiation between the top Republican 
and the top Democrat on the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and 
Forestry which will protect middle-class families from unnecessary and 
unfair higher food prices, while also ensuring access to more 
information about the food we all purchase.
  Chairman Roberts said this bipartisan bill will benefit consumers by 
greatly increasing the amount of food information at their fingertips, 
while avoiding devastating increases in the price of food.
  The ranking Democrat on the committee, Senator Stabenow, noted that 
it will prevent a confusing patchwork of 50 different labeling 
requirements in 50 different States, and it recognizes the scientific 
consensus that biotechnology is safe.
  It is the result of bipartisan work to address an issue that could 
negatively harm consumers and producers.
  The amendments being bandied about threaten to derail this process, 
and the end result will be a tax on food for middle-class families.
  So here is the deal, Mr. President. We need to pass it today. We need 
the House to take it up and pass it, and we need them to send it to the 
President to sign it. So the end game is clear. The only issue before 
the Senate at the moment is whether we do it in the near future or at 
10:20 tonight.
  Bearing that in mind, as I have said, we are prepared to vote on the 
Sanders alternative to the Roberts-Stabenow compromise language and to 
finish up this bill now rather than waiting until time expires at 10:20 
tonight.
  A bipartisan majority voted to end debate on the bill. Everyone has 
had an opportunity to be heard. It is time to finish this bill.
  Under the regular order, there would be no further amendments on the 
bill. Under the consent agreement I am about to offer, the opponents 
would be able to vote on the Sanders alternative.
  Therefore, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding

[[Page S4893]]

rule XXII, there be 20 minutes of postcloture time left, equally 
divided between the two leaders or their designees; further, that 
Senator Sanders or his designee be allowed to offer amendment No. 4948 
to the motion to concur with further amendment; finally, that following 
the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on the Sanders 
amendment, with a 60-affirmative-vote threshold needed for adoption; 
and that following disposition of the Sanders amendment, the remaining 
amendment be withdrawn and the Senate vote on the motion to concur in 
the House amendment with further amendment with no further intervening 
action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the issue 
before this body is whether there is going to be an opportunity for 
amendments to be considered and voted upon.
  We have heard today that we have three Republican amendments--three 
Republican amendments that address a prohibition on Federal labeling, 
that address criminal penalties, that address salmon. We also have 
three Democratic amendments we would like to have votes on.
  Once upon a time--it now starts to seem like a fairy tale--this 
Senate was known as a great deliberative body. Well, a great 
deliberative body entertains ideas, discusses them, and votes on them. 
So in support and honor of the tradition of the Senate to put 
amendments forward and have them debated and voted upon, we are 
offering an alternative. I would ask the majority leader to modify his 
request and to do so in the following fashion: I ask unanimous consent 
that the following amendments be the only amendments in order to the 
motion to concur with respect to S. 764 with an amendment: Sanders No. 
4948, Leahy No. 4966, Merkley No. 4969, Sasse No. 4972, Paul No. 4947, 
and Murkowski No. 4954; that there be 1 hour for debate, to run 
concurrently, prior to votes in relation to the amendments in the order 
listed; that all amendments be subject to a 60-vote threshold required 
for adoption; and that upon disposition of the amendments, all 
postcloture time be yielded back with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator so modify his request?
  The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, it is my understanding the Senator has 
made a unanimous consent request for six amendments. Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as I go 
over each of these amendments, each one would undo the carefully 
crafted compromise that has been put together by the distinguished 
ranking member, Senator Stabenow, and me, so I must object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The objection is to the 
modification.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I believe everybody has objected. If 
not, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objections heard in duplicate.
  Mr. DURBIN. 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. HOEVEN. 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. HOEVEN. Mr. President, every now and then we have a chance to 
support a bipartisan bill that tackles a tough issue in the face of 
stiff, stiff opposition. The biotechnology bill before us today is just 
such legislation, and I come to the floor to speak in support of its 
passage.
  This measure will avoid a patchwork of State labeling regulations, 
and in doing so will save families thousands of dollars a year, protect 
American jobs, and provide consumers with accurate, transparent 
information about their food. This bipartisan solution is a product of 
the hard work of Ag Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and Ranking Member 
Debbie Stabenow, who have shown real leadership in putting this bill 
together and are now working to get it passed.
  Specifically, the Roberts-Stabenow biotechnology disclosure bill 
accomplishes three important objectives: First, it protects consumers 
by immediately ending the problem of having a patchwork of inconsistent 
State GMO labeling programs that would increase prices; second, it 
ensures farmers and ranchers can continue to provide Americans with an 
affordable, reliable, and safe food supply; third, it creates a uniform 
national disclosure system that will provide consumers with more 
information about their food products.
  This bill will ensure that the Vermont GMO labeling law, which went 
into effect last week, July 1, does not end up costing American 
families billions of dollars when they fill up their grocery carts.
  Food companies are already having to choose between one of three bad 
options for complying with the Vermont law and laws from additional 
States that may follow Vermont's lead: First, order new packaging for 
products going to each individual State with a labeling law; second, 
reformulate products so that no labeling is required; or third, stop 
selling to States with mandatory labeling laws. All of these options 
will increase the cost of food and could result in job losses in the ag 
economy.
  For millions of Americans, the GMO or bioengineered food labeling 
program created by Vermont will impact the affordability of food 
without improving its safety. Testimony provided by the USDA, FDA, and 
EPA to the Senate Ag Committee last fall made clear that foods produced 
with the benefits of biotechnology are safe. Just last week, 107 Nobel 
laureates signed a joint letter to Greenpeace urging it to stop 
campaigning against biotechnology and GMOs, stating that ``Opposition 
[to GMO's] based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be 
stopped.''
  The real risk is that if we don't address Vermont's GMO law, real 
families will have a tougher time making ends meet. In fact, if food 
companies have to apply Vermont's standards to all products nationwide, 
it will result in an estimated increase of over $1,050 a year per 
household. For families having a tough time paying bills, this is in 
essence a regressive tax, and it will hurt the poor more than those 
with substantial means.
  From a jobs perspective, the story isn't any better. It has been 
calculated that if Vermont's law is applied nationwide, it will cost 
over $80 billion a year to switch products over to non-GMO supplies. 
Those billions of dollars a year in additional cost will hurt an ag and 
food industry that creates over 17 million jobs nationwide. In my State 
of North Dakota alone, 94,000 jobs and 38 percent of our State's 
economy rely on the ag and food economy.
  This is a bad time to be making it more expensive to do business in 
the ag sector. Earlier this year, economists at the Federal Reserve 
Bank of Kansas City testified that net farm income in 2015 is more than 
50 percent less than it was in 2013, and it is expected to go down 
again in 2016. A State patchwork of food labeling laws will only make 
this situation worse, as many farmers who rely on biotech crops to 
increase productivity will be deprived of a critical tool. I know how 
hard farmers work and how much they put on the line every year when 
they have to take out an operating loan for crops that may or may not 
materialize. We shouldn't ask them to feed the Nation with one hand 
tied behind their backs by taking away biotechnology.
  More than just overcoming the problems associated with having a 
patchwork of State regulations, I think it is important for Americans 
to know that this legislation ensures consumers have consistent, 
accurate information about the bioengineered content of their food. 
This measure creates greater transparency for consumers by putting in 
place a new national bioengineered food disclosure standard that will 
ensure products labeled as having been produced with biotechnology meet 
a uniform, national standard.
  As I mentioned, foods produced with the aid of bioengineering are, 
according to the FDA, EPA, and USDA, safe.

[[Page S4894]]

However, many consumers do want to know if the food they are buying is 
produced using biotechnology, which is why this legislation provides a 
national bioengineered food labeling standard.
  Many of us who sit on the Ag Committee would have preferred a 
voluntary labeling standard. After all, as has been demonstrated by 
scientific experts, whether a food contains bioengineered material is 
not a food safety issue. Yet there are many perspectives on this issue, 
and in the true spirit of compromise, Senator Roberts and Senator 
Stabenow deserve a great deal of credit for coming up with a 
legislative solution.
  This bill's national bioengineered food labeling standard will ensure 
that a consumer who buys a food product with text, symbol, or 
electronic link indicating bioengineered content in, say, North Dakota, 
for example, is purchasing a product that is held to the same 
disclosure standards as foods sold in another State--for example, New 
York or California. Meanwhile, this bill will provide regulatory 
flexibility to ensure farmers and ranchers can continue to produce 
affordable and reliable food for the Nation.
  We need a solution, and this bill delivers that solution. It helps 
keep our Nation's food affordable, it supports jobs, and it provides 
consumers consistent information about bioengineered foods. I urge my 
colleagues to support this commonsense measure.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.


                 MILCON-VA and Zika Virus Funding Bill

  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for once again 
reinforcing why it is so important for us to get this compromise bill--
this bipartisan bill on agriculture biotech--to the President's desk so 
we can move on to take on other matters, and that is one of the matters 
I want to talk about now.
  Again, I know that when we come into this Chamber and are on C-SPAN, 
sometimes for people who are watching or may be in the gallery, it is 
hard to understand some of what we are talking about. What I am talking 
about is a bill that I hope we vote on next week. It is a bill that in 
two separate measures went to the House with strong bipartisan support. 
Now it is coming back in what we call a conference report, and we are 
one vote away from potentially sending this bill to the President's 
desk. It has two parts. I am going to speak predominantly on the second 
part, but the first part has to do with funding our veterans.
  I come from the State of North Carolina. We have a population of 10 
million. Ten percent of our State--nearly 1 million of our citizens--
are veterans. We are very proud of our military tradition, and we are 
certainly proud of those who have decided to call North Carolina their 
home after their military service. As a matter of fact, I think 
everybody in the Senate--Democrats and Republicans--has veterans as a 
priority. I firmly believe that. That, I guess, is one of the reasons I 
am stunned that we have reached an impasse in moving forward and 
providing appropriations that will let us increase funding to veterans.
  The bill that we seem not to be able to get consensus on--although we 
had consensus when we first sent it out of this Chamber--provides 
critical funding for veterans housing, for their disability 
compensation, for suicide hotlines, for treatment for PTSD, and for 
opioid addiction treatment. For all the promises that we are not 
keeping today, we can help fulfill those promises by providing the 
desperately needed funding the VA needs.
  But instead of working to get this funding done, we are at an impasse 
now, and I simply don't understand it. To me, some of them may be 
genuine disagreements with the policy, but in some respects it feels a 
little bit like scoring political points, and I don't get it.
  What I really want to talk about tonight is the other provision of 
the bill, and that has to do with something that is desperately needed 
in our Nation. It is funding--and taking seriously--the threat of the 
Zika virus.
  Zika is here. We are in mosquito season. I went hiking this weekend, 
and I know mosquitoes are out in North Carolina. In fact, they are all 
over the Nation. We need to work quickly to get a vaccine. We need it 
desperately. We are told by the CDC we could be 18 months away from 
having a vaccine for Zika. What we need to do is make sure we are 
funding research efforts so that we can win the fight against Zika. But 
I will tell you, we can't do this without providing financial support.
  As I said before, the Senate passed a bill earlier this year, and we 
sent it to the House. Now it is back in the Senate, and it is one vote 
away from going to the President's desk. The bill spends over $1 
billion to fight Zika in all of its forms, and my Democratic friends 
voted for this bill earlier in the spring at the same funding level we 
talked about. There is discussion about spending more, but it seems 
illogical that we would spend nothing at all. That seems to be the 
position that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are taking 
right now.
  We stand ready as Republicans in the majority to provide this 
funding, but it appears as though, because we have reached this 
political impasse, we could put Americans' health and safety at risk.
  Again, we have a rollcall vote from earlier this year where most of 
us--virtually all of us--voted for $1.1 billion in funding. I will talk 
a little later about what that funding was directed toward. We have 
Members who voted with us on that bill who are not willing to vote now 
to send this to the President's desk.
  I am going to submit for the record the list of people who voted for 
this bill the last time it was on the floor and are now voting against 
it. I am not going to spend time today with limited time to go through 
each of the Members. But it doesn't make sense to me when you have 
cases reported--5 cases in Colorado--yet we have someone opposing the 
bill. There are 24 cases in Pennsylvania, and before they supported it, 
and now they are opposing it. There are 27 cases in Virginia, 26 cases 
in Maryland, 52 cases in California, and 198 cases in New York, for a 
total of 671 cases that have been reported to date in the United 
States. Most of these are travel related, but we have the threat of 
sexual transmission. Now that we are in the height of mosquito season, 
we have the real threat of mosquitoes infecting American citizens, and 
the threat is real. Without going through the whole list, Florida is 
another example, with 162 cases reported already. It would seem to me 
that the Senators from Florida would want to get this funding to the 
President's desk so we can start solving the problem.
  Again, Members who now oppose this funding voted for it just a couple 
of months ago. Again, if you add up the numbers, that is 671 cases 
solely in the States where Members now are opposing the bill, and the 
cases are growing. We now seem to be engaged in this political divide, 
which really is the Senate at its worst, and we are better than that.
  I know there are a lot of reasons that have been put forth to oppose 
it in this version where they weren't against it before. There were 
some that said it is because we are not funding or we are preventing 
funding for certain organizations. It is not true. The funding can flow 
through Medicaid to any organization which provides health services 
that would be relevant to the disease.
  The way you control the population of the mosquitoes that can 
potentially carry the disease is to kill them--to kill them where they 
breed. Right now we think, temporarily, for this mosquito season we 
should do whatever we can to make sure that we kill the potential 
source of the disease that is transmitted through these mosquitoes. It 
can be done. It can be done with chemicals the World Health 
Organization says is safe in so many other jurisdictions. All we are 
saying is during this mosquito season, before we get a vaccine, we use 
this chemical--this compound--that can kill Zika mosquitoes and prevent 
them from transmitting the disease. That doesn't seem like an 
unreasonable thing to do. For 180 days, allow us to try to dramatically 
reduce the threat to the population. These are commonsense policies.
  The fact that we are having this discussion, the fact that we can't 
get it, the fact that time is running out and we have to get it done 
next week is ridiculous. We are well into the mosquito season. There is 
probably not anybody listening to this or in this Chamber right now 
that has not been bitten by a mosquito already this year.

[[Page S4895]]

  Let's do what we have to do to keep America safe. Let's stop the 
partisan politics. Let's get this bill to the President's desk, and 
then let's move on to the many other things the American people expect 
us to tackle while we remain in session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I yield my hour assigned to me to the 
Democratic leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  The assistant Democratic leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, eventually this evening, we will be voting 
on GMO labeling. As I mentioned earlier, this is the most politically 
contentious and divisive issue I can ever remember. I have been in 
Congress for a few years. Whenever this comes up in our caucus, it is 
going to be a heated argument. It evokes so many emotions, not just 
among the members of our caucus but certainly with the American people. 
It gets down to some basic questions.
  If you are dealing with a food product that has bioengineered 
contents or genetically modified content, there are several questions 
we need to ask. The first question is, Should the consumer know this? 
Well, 92 percent of Americans believe, yes, they have a right to know 
if there is GMO content in the food they eat. That is what the polls 
show--92 percent. That is an overwhelming number when you have lived 
with polls as long as most of us have.
  Then you ask a question, delving into it: Is that because GMO 
modified food is dangerous to a consumer?
  I think the answer is very clear that the scientific analyses of GMO 
food have not reached that conclusion. They believe--the National 
Academy of Sciences and others--that GMO food by itself is not 
dangerous to consumers. That is the scientific evidence. Nevertheless, 
there is this strong public opinion that people want to know whether 
GMOs are part of the food that they are consuming.
  I have done some research on this, and I am sure every Member has 
tried to look at this very carefully. The one article that has stuck 
with me through the entire debate was published in the New England 
Journal of Medicine in August of 2015 last year. It was about a year 
ago when two doctors, Dr. Philip Landrigan and Dr. Charles Benbrook, 
published this article in what I think is highly regarded as a 
nonpolitical professional medical journal, the New England Journal of 
Medicine.
  They go through an analysis of GMO in foods. They acknowledge at the 
outset what I have already said--that there is no scientific evidence 
of danger if there is GMO content in your food. Then they take it to a 
different level--an important level, as far as I am concerned. Is there 
any difference in the way GMO products or plants are grown? The answer 
is yes, and it was designed to be different. This was inspired 
initially by Monsanto, a company that has a major presence in my State. 
It was designed to create a seed corn that they made and sold that was 
resistant to an herbicide--that is a weedkiller--Roundup or glyphosate. 
They were selling the seed corn, which obviously is a source of profit 
for them and then encouraging the farmers who bought it to use this 
weedkiller or herbicide in their fields, saying this herbicide would 
not hurt the corn crop, just the weeds.
  These two doctors of the New England Journal of Medicine then 
proceeded to analyze what happened next. What happened was that over 
time, there were weeds that were becoming more and more resistant to 
Roundup--stronger, thicker, bigger weeds. To put it a different way, 
Mother Nature was not cooperating with Monsanto. Weeds were appearing 
that they didn't anticipate. So they decided to apply even more of this 
herbicide, this weedkiller called Roundup, to see if that controlled 
the problem, and it didn't. They had to add another weedkiller--another 
herbicide--2,4-D, which has a long history in the United States, and 
then they started combining the two, hoping to stop the weeds with this 
new combination.
  The net result, which these two doctors published in this article of 
the New England Journal of Medicine, was a dramatic increase in this 
glyphosate--this Roundup, that was being applied across the world. 
Roundup-ready crops now account for more than 90 percent of corn and 
soybeans planted in the United States. They go on to say:

       But widespread adoption of herbicide-resistant crops has 
     led to overreliance on herbicides and, in particular, on 
     glyphosate.
       In the United States, glyphosate use has increased by a 
     factor of more than 250--from 0.4 million kg in 1974 to 113 
     million kg in 2014. Global use has increased by a factor of 
     more than 10. Not surprisingly, glyphosate-resistant weeds 
     have emerged and are found today on nearly 100 million acres 
     in 36 states. Fields must now be treated with multiple 
     herbicides, including 2,4-D, a component of the Agent Orange 
     defoliant used in the Vietnam War.

  The EPA anticipates that a 3-to-7-fold increase in 2,4-D use will be 
the result of these Roundup resistant weeds. Is that important? I think 
it is very important. It is important because we know that if you apply 
large quantities of chemicals to our agricultural fields, you may 
produce and harvest a big crop, but there is an environmental risk. How 
much of a risk depends on the chemicals being provided, being used by 
the farmers.
  If GMO foods on your table are not a concern to your family because 
of scientific analysis, there is another question. Is the method that 
is being used to grow these Roundup-resistant crops, these GMO crops, 
an environmental danger to anyone? These two doctors came to a 
conclusion that it is--a determination in 2015 that glyphosate is a 
probable human carcinogen and 2,4-D is a possible human carcinogen.
  Because of the link between these chemicals and cancer, these two 
doctors have concluded that labeling is important so consumers know 
that they are consuming products that on the table are no danger but 
that may have called for the use of more chemicals leading to more 
environmental danger. They conclude that there should be labeling. It 
is a different approach, but it is one that I think is valid, and it 
comes from a totally nonpolitical source--the New England Journal of 
Medicine.
  The question then comes, if we are going to have labeling, what kind 
of labeling? I mentioned earlier today--and I want to repeat it--that 
my hat is off to the Campbell Soup Company. They have been around a 
long time. They put out information in a press release in January of 
this year announcing that they supported the enactment of Federal 
legislation to establish a single mandatory labeling standard for foods 
derived from genetically modified organisms.
  They went on to say that Campbell's believes it is necessary for the 
Federal Government to provide a national standard for labeling 
requirements to better inform consumers. I agree.
  They go on to say that the notion of every State setting a labeling 
standard is madness. It would be impossible for major food 
manufacturers to keep up with the variety of different labeling 
requirements, and it isn't practical in a nation like ours for us to 
really accommodate that kind of labeling requirement.
  Campbell's has stepped forward and said we don't believe that GMOs in 
our product are any danger to consumers, and we are prepared to declare 
on our product, in clear words, whether or not they contain genetically 
modified organisms. I think this is a responsible corporate answer to a 
vexing problem we faced for years.
  I salute Campbell's for trusting consumers and trusting their ability 
to convince consumers the food they are selling is wholesome. I wish 
the food industry had followed the Campbell's motto, but the bill we 
have before us does not. It provides three different opportunities to 
disclose on food products--mandatory--whether or not they contain 
genetically modified organisms. One is a simple declaration: GMO, non-
GMO. The second is using something that will be developed by the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture and that consumers will come to learn--a 
signal or some sort of a sign or symbol as to whether GMO is included.
  It is the third approach that troubles me the most. I have said this 
over and over to the people in the food industry across America who 
support this approach. I call this the secret decoder ring approach. 
What it means is, if you are a consumer walking into a store buying 
groceries for your family, you will be facing what is known as a QR. I 
am learning as it goes on what this

[[Page S4896]]

means. It is one of those little boxes with squiggles in it, which 
makes no sense to you as you look at it, but it can be read by a 
computer. That reading would then signal whether or not you receive 
additional information. I think that is deceptive. I think it is 
unnecessary, and I think Campbell's has the right approach.
  The QR codes would literally have consumers who want to know--and 92 
percent do want to know--about the GMOs in their food either use their 
cell phones on the products they are about to buy in the grocery store 
or turn to some reader in the grocery store that will give them a page 
or two of information about the contents. I really believe that is an 
attempt to obfuscate the situation. I think most consumers will rightly 
assume that if there is not a clear declaration on the product which 
shows that it is non-GMO, that it contains GMOs.
  I think the food industry is taking an approach which can't be 
defended with a straight face. Can you really expect a busy consumer--a 
mother with children in her shopping cart to pull out her cell phone 
and stop at every can of soup to try to get a reading and then read her 
cell phone to see if there is a page or two of information about that 
product? That isn't fair to consumers, and that is why major consumer 
organizations oppose this bill. It is one of the major reasons I oppose 
the bill as well.
  If there were a declaration, such as a symbol, or straight 
acknowledgement of wording as to whether the product contains GMOs or 
is non-GMO, which every seasoned consumer would come to understand, I 
think that is an honest approach. I don't think it is reasonable or 
honest to expect a consumer to have to scan a QR code and then have to 
read their cell phone to determine what is in the product.
  Let me conclude by saying I salute those who have taken up this 
battle. Many have taken this up for many different reasons. It has been 
a vexing and contentious issue for a long period of time. I do not 
support State labeling. We have to avoid that. I do support honest 
disclosures on food products so American consumers who rightly believe 
they have a right to know have a way of finding that information in a 
way that is reasonable.
  I also want to add that it is my understanding that there is a 2-year 
delay in terms of imposing this requirement. I don't know why 2 years 
would be necessary. It would seem to me that if Campbell's can move on 
this more quickly, the rest of the food industry should be able to do 
so as well.
  I thank the Senator from Oregon, who has been working hard on this 
issue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, it is my understanding that either 
directly or indirectly, the Senator from Oregon controls the time, but 
he has agreed to yield up to 10 minutes to me to make some comments. I 
wish to confirm that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I do not control the time. I was prepared 
to speak, but when my colleague requested to go first, I asked if he 
might keep his comments to a reasonable period.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I had the nature of the courtesy slightly 
wrong, but nevertheless the principle remains, and I appreciate the 
cooperation of my colleague. I will keep my comments to 10 minutes, 
especially if the Presiding Officer is kind enough to inform me when 
the 10 minutes has expired.


                            Opioid Epidemic

  Mr. President, I wish to speak about an epidemic that every one of us 
knows is raging across every one of our States and is absolutely the 
case in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and that is the heroin and 
opioid epidemic. This is excruciating to so many families. I think at 
this point we all know people who have been victims of this epidemic. I 
certainly do. We have to do all we can about this issue.
  I have the privilege of being the chairman of a health subcommittee 
on the Finance Committee. In that capacity, I have tried to learn what 
I can about this epidemic. I have traveled all across Pennsylvania 
hosting roundtable discussions, field hearings, and getting as much 
input as I can. What I have learned is that there are at least three 
things that we could be doing here in Congress to at least help address 
this terrible epidemic of opioid and prescription drug abuse. None of 
them is a silver bullet that will end this epidemic, but it can help, 
and we need to do what we can to help. No. 1, we can reduce the 
diversion of these powerful prescription narcotics, and there are ways 
we can do that. No. 2, we can deal with overprescribing because that is 
a problem. No. 3, we can improve access to and the quality of treatment 
for people who are already addicted. We have an opportunity to make 
progress on all three of these really important areas if we will just 
approve the conference report on the Comprehensive Addiction and 
Recovery Act. We know it as CARA, the Comprehensive Addiction and 
Recovery Act, which we will be voting on soon. Let me quickly run 
through how this bill helps in all three of these areas.
  No. 1, I mentioned reducing the diversion of powerful narcotics. The 
Government Accountability Office estimated that in a single year, 
170,000 Medicare beneficiaries were doctor shopping. That is to say 
they were going to multiple doctors getting multiple prescriptions, 
getting them all filled at multiple pharmacies, and ending up with a 
commercial-scale quantity of these powerful, addictive narcotics. And 
170,000 is a tiny percentage of Medicare beneficiaries, but it is a big 
number.
  When Medicaid and commercial insurers discovered there were people on 
their plans doctor shopping, they came up with a device to stop it. It 
is called lock-in. What they do is, when they discover a person is 
doctor shopping, they require that person to get their prescription 
from a single doctor and a single pharmacy so they can't continue the 
abuse.
  This tool does not exist in Medicare. I sat down with Senator Brown, 
Senator Portman, and Senator Kaine and wrote a bill that would give 
Medicare the power that Medicaid and private insurers already use that 
would allow Medicare to lock in a patient to a single prescriber and a 
single pharmacy when they discover doctor shopping.
  This has broad bipartisan support. The President called for this 
legislation in his budget. The Pew Charitable Trusts, law enforcement 
officers, doctors, and seniors groups all support this legislation. It 
will help stop fraud, help coordinate care, reduce costs, but most 
importantly, it will safe lives. It will reduce the diversion of 
addictive narcotics onto the streets, and that is something we can do.
  This bill that Senators Brown, Portman, Kaine, and I wrote is in 
CARA. It is in this legislation. It is a good thing.
  No. 2, I mentioned reducing overprescribing. The Centers for Disease 
Control has found that we are, in fact, overprescribing opioids for 
many medical conditions, and doctors don't always know this when they 
are seeing a patient. They don't know that maybe there is another 
doctor who is maybe providing similar or equivalent prescriptions. 
There is an electronic database system that would allow physicians to 
know what a patient has already been prescribed so they wouldn't create 
an excessive or inappropriate prescription. It is a called prescription 
drug monitoring program, or PDMP, and it will provide that information, 
such as the patient's history.
  Senator Shaheen was the lead on the bill. Senator Collins and I 
joined her on this legislation in order to provide assistance to States 
to make sure their prescription drug monitoring programs are 
interoperable across State lines. This is a tool that will help reduce 
the overprescription and end up making sure we have better care and 
diminish the incidence of these narcotics getting into the wrong hands.
  Finally, I mentioned that we need to improve access to and the 
quality of treatment. The CARA bill does that in a number of ways. It 
will establish a demonstration program for evidence-based treatment 
programs. It will help connect individuals battling addiction with 
services. It expands access to naloxone, or Narcan, which is a drug 
that immediately reverses the effects of the overdose and saves lives. 
CARA will help law enforcement set up heroin

[[Page S4897]]

task forces, and it will increase opioid drug disposal sites.
  There is a lot here. This is very constructive. The bill has enormous 
and broad bipartisan support. CARA passed in the Senate 94 to 1. It 
passed in the House 400 to 5. The conference report we will be 
considering is substantively the same as the bill that passed the 
Senate. In fact, it is broader and does more to help deal with this 
terrible problem. It has the support of all kinds of public health 
groups. It has Democratic and Republican ideas. It is exactly the kind 
of thing that we should come together and get done.
  I urge my colleagues not to play politics with this one. I know this 
is the political season and there is a temptation. It has happened with 
other pieces of legislation. But this is too important. There is broad 
bipartisan support. It is constructive. It won't end the epidemic, but 
it will save individual lives and help us make progress for the people 
we represent.
  I hope that very soon we will approve this conference report and get 
it over to the House so they can approve it and get it to the 
President's desk. I am sure the President will sign it. That is exactly 
what we need to do.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I yield 2 hours to the junior Senator from 
Oregon, Senator Jeff Merkley.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, tonight in this Chamber, we are 
discussing an issue that is of concern to millions of Americans. It is 
an issue that goes to the heart of one of the most important concerns 
to a family, and that is the food that we eat as adults or parents and 
that we provide to our children. The real heart of the question is, 
Does a citizen have a right to know what is in the food they are 
putting into their own mouths or putting on the dinner table for their 
children?
  The simple point that I will argue day and night is that a citizen 
does have that right. It is the right to have information about an 
issue related to your family's health and related to the environment. 
How can you, as a consumer, make responsible choices related to both 
the health of your family and the health of the environment if you do 
not have the information at the point you are purchasing a product? 
That is why we have all kinds of information disclosure rules in 
America. For example, let's say you are considering buying fish in the 
supermarket. If the fish is farm-raised, it has to say on the package 
that it is farm-raised. Why is that rule in place? Well, that rule is 
in place because people buying the fish often care a lot about whether 
it is a wild fish or a farm-raised fish. They care in part because it 
may differ in the quality of the food they are putting in their body 
and because the way that farmed fish are raised may raise concerns 
about the environment and they may want to exercise a choice of only 
buying wild fish. That is why it is on the label.
  Why do we put the number of calories on the label? This is an issue 
citizens care about. Folks often wonder how much that food is going to 
add to their weight or how much they may need to exercise.
  By the way, folks also want to know how much sugar is in a product, 
how much fat is in a product, how much unsaturated fat, and whether 
there are peanuts in a product. We answer these questions because 
consumers care about these issues. It is related to the consumers' 
health, and that is the key. The consumer has a right to know. Tonight 
we are addressing a specific issue, which is the right to know whether 
the ingredients in the food we are eating are genetically modified, has 
gene splicing occurred to change the makeup of the food we are eating.

  Just a little while ago, the Senator from Illinois was sharing a 
study with this body from the New England Journal of Medicine in which 
two doctors looked very carefully at this question and they came away 
with a simple conclusion: It is reasonable, they found, for citizens to 
be concerned about the impact of consuming GMO ingredients, and 
therefore it is reasonable for citizens to be able to have this 
information on the package and they supported labeling.
  I know from other studies I have examined, that in areas where 
glyphosate, a weedkiller, is applied, which is very much tied to 
glyphosate resistance to genetically modified crops--crops such as 
sugar beets and soybeans and corn--we have results that show the 
glyphosate actually ends up in samples of the rainwater because it is 
dispersed in a spray. We have results that show it ends up in the urine 
of people who live in these areas, and we know various international 
bodies have said glyphosate is a probable carcinogen. So if it is 
showing up in urine, as a parent, you might have concern about a 
probable carcinogen showing up in that fashion and what impact it might 
have on your health.
  There are those here who say we can't find an established cancer 
cluster that is directly related so we are comfortable making the 
decision for the men and women and children of America. We are 
comfortable denying the right to know. That is why this bill is labeled 
the DARK Act: Deny Americans the Right to Know.
  I am going to go through how it is that this act that is before us 
tonight--which has been presented as a mandatory labeling bill and is 
nothing of the such. In fact, it is an effort to guarantee that 
citizens do not get a label they can use.
  So let's talk about these various loopholes in this bill--these 
Monsanto loopholes. Monsanto loophole No. 1. One may wonder why I call 
it a Monsanto loophole. Well, first, Monsanto is the biggest producer 
of Roundup. That is the commercial name for glyphosate. They sell it 
across the country, and they sell it along with their seed for GMO 
soybeans and GMO sugar beets and GMO corn. So they sell the plants to 
be raised that are tolerant to this weedkiller, glyphosate, and then 
they sell the glyphosate itself, and that has resulted in a massive 
increase in the amount of weedkiller applied across America.
  That has a variety of impacts that people are concerned about related 
to the environment. It has an impact because we start to see the 
emergence of superweeds--which are weeds that because they are exposed 
so often and there are random mutations, they start to become resistant 
to glyphosate so you have to apply more of it than you did before--or, 
as pointed out in this article my colleague from Illinois was reading 
from a little while ago, you have to start applying a different 
weedkiller because of the emerging superweeds resistant to the 
weedkiller Roundup.
  Also, we have the evolution of superbugs. Now, what is a superbug? 
The corn has been modified so then not only is it resistant to 
glyphosate or the weedkiller, but it also produces a pesticide inside 
the cells called Bt corn. I think many citizens would want to know more 
about that. They would be a little bit concerned that there is a 
genetic code inside every cell of the corn plant that is designed to 
generate a pesticide within the cell of the corn. And then if they 
looked into it a little further, they would find out the insect this is 
attempting to kill is also starting to evolve to be resistant to this 
pesticide. So not only are they concerned about does this pesticide get 
generated inside the corn kernel, since the DNA grower of this 
pesticide is now inside every cell, but what about the evolution of 
superbugs--bugs which now, because they are resistant to the pesticide 
inside the corn, are in a cornfield and the farmer has to start to 
apply other pesticides to the corn as well.
  What happens when this pesticide runs off the cornfield? What happens 
when the weedkiller, glyphosate--Roundup--runs off the cornfield or the 
sugar beet field? This runoff puts a lot of weedkiller into our creeks 
and into our streams and into our rivers, and that has an impact on the 
biology of the streams. So a key concern is the issue of the impact of 
this type of farming surrounding these particular genetic modifications 
and its impact on our environment.
  In addition, we have another impact where it is heavily applied. It 
has killed the milkweed, and the milkweed has been the primary food for 
monarch butterflies so we see a huge crash in the Midwest population of 
the monarch butterfly. Well, that is reasonable for people to be 
concerned about.

[[Page S4898]]

  Just this weekend, I was talking to some friends and we were all 
relating that when we were kids, we saw monarch butterflies all the 
time, and this is in Oregon. Now, the population hasn't crashed equally 
everywhere, but it certainly has diminished greatly, even in my State 
of Oregon. We were noting that our kids are not even sure what a 
monarch butterfly looks like. That is how much of the population has 
decreased.
  In a very short period of time, we have had a profound impact on the 
environment. That is a reasonable concern for individuals.
  Here we have a bill that says we are going to label products as GMO 
in order to address the citizens' concern, except the bill doesn't 
actually do that, and it has some serious loopholes that serve Monsanto 
and its various crops very well. So let's look at the first Monsanto 
loophole; that is, that the definition exempts most of the Monsanto GMO 
crop. Let's address that a little bit.
  What does the bill actually say? Well, it starts with a definition of 
bioengineering that is not used anywhere else in the world. I will just 
read it: ``The term `bioengineering,' and any similar term, as 
determined by the Secretary with respect to a food, refers to food: 
that contains genetic material''--those key words, ``contains genetic 
material''--``that has been modified through in vitro recombinant 
techniques.''
  And I will go to the second loophole in a moment. So it says ``that 
contains genetic material.''
  Isn't that clever because, you see, here is the way it works. When 
you take genetically modified corn and you make high-fructose corn 
syrup, the genetic material is stripped out. So what this definition 
does is it says that GMO high-fructose corn syrup used in products 
throughout America is magically no longer considered GMO in the 
definition in this bill. Furthermore, the same thing with sugar beets. 
GMO sugar beets produce GMO sugar, except that under this definition, 
once again, the genetic material is stripped out so the sugar is 
magically not a GMO ingredient. How about soybeans? The same issue. 
Soybean oil does not contain genetic material. So this definition, used 
nowhere else in the world, was written specifically targeted to exempt 
the three big Monsanto GMO crops and the things that are made from 
them.
  We have looked across the country and many people--many scientists, 
many groups--have pointed out this shortcoming. The Food and Drug 
Administration gave technical advice and made it very clear that this 
definition fails the test of covering these products--high-fructose 
corn syrup and soybean oil--but here is what another person from 
outside government said: ``This definition leaves out a large number of 
foods derived from GMOs such as corn and soybean oil, sugar beet sugar, 
and HFCS''--high-fructose corn syrup. ``That is because, although these 
products are derived from or are GMOs, the level of DNA in the products 
is very low and it is generally not sufficient to be detected in DNA 
based assays.''
  So here is what happens then. If we were to look at definitions 
around the world--everywhere in the world--corn oil from GMO corn would 
be a GMO ingredient. That would be true whether you are talking about 
the two dozen-plus countries in the European Union or you go south to 
Brazil or you go around the world to China, but under this definition 
in the USA, magically, this GMO corn oil is no longer a GMO ingredient.
  Soybean oil is covered if it comes from GMO soybeans in the European 
countries--in Brazil, in China, all around world--but not in the United 
States.
  Sugar from sugar beets, GMO sugar beets. It is a GMO ingredient in 
every undertaking around the world to provide labels, except in the 
United States of America under this bill.
  So this is a massive GMO loophole. That is not the only Monsanto 
loophole in this bill. Let's go to the second one. The second one is 
there is no requirement for a GMO label. You say: Wait, wait, wait. We 
have heard from the proponents that this is a GMO labeling bill--a 
mandatory GMO labeling bill. Let me say it again. There is no 
requirement in this bill to put a GMO label on your product. This is 
the no label required, no GMO label required bill. So it is a little 
bit of false advertising or actually a lot of false advertising to call 
this a mandatory GMO labeling bill.
  What the bill says is, there are a couple of options that exist today 
that people can use voluntarily. Let me show my colleagues an example 
of that. This is a Mars product. It is the omnipresent Mars peanut 
M&Ms, one of my particular favorites. Mars has said we want to make 
sure our consumers know what is in the product so they list all of the 
traditional things--the serving size and the calories and the total 
fat, cholesterol, the protein, and the sodium. But our consumers also 
want to know if there are GMO ingredients so they answer the question: 
``Partially produced with genetic engineering.'' It is a GMO product. 
Now, we don't know from this label which ingredient is the one they are 
referring to, but to the consumer, that tells them the first important 
thing they want to know, and the consumer can look into the details 
elsewhere if they want to explore it more thoroughly.
  That is integrity. That is honesty. That is responsiveness to 
consumer concerns. Why do I say responsiveness to consumer concerns? 
Here is why: Because across the country there have been surveys of 
whether individuals want to have a simple label on their product. The 
answer is, rounding off slightly, 9 out of 10 Americans want a simple 
label on the product.
  Here is something else that is kind of intriguing. This number is 
essentially the same whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or an 
Independent. Think: Here we are in a campaign year--a campaign year 
where the differences between Americans are highlighted with great 
emotion, great passion, and great determination that one side is right 
and the other side is wrong. But here we have an issue where Democrats 
and Republicans and Independents all agree they want a simple label on 
the package. It is kind of exciting. It is kind of exciting to have 
something that Americans completely agree on. Wouldn't it be wonderful 
to have Congress say: Finally, we found something we can all agree on, 
and we are going to honor the desire of our citizens of every political 
stripe to have a simple consumer label on the package.
  Well, I would love to state that this Senate, these 100 Members of 
the Senate, actually are honoring the perspective of their Republican, 
Democratic, and Independent citizens and that they are determined to 
make sure that any bill written honors this desire for a simple on-
label indication of whether there are GMO ingredients. I would love to 
tell you that is the case. Wouldn't that be complimentary of this 
Chamber of 100 Members, this Chamber that I have been so honored to 
serve in and affectionate toward since I was an intern here 40 years 
ago?
  But something destructive has happened in America. This Chamber seems 
to no longer care about the opinions of consumers and Americans. They 
seem to care about one thing: Is there a powerful special interest that 
I need to toe the line for, that I need to be obedient to, that I need 
to make sure will help me when the next election comes up?
  So we have that powerful special interest that doesn't want American 
citizens to know what is in the food products, and that is Monsanto and 
friends--powerful special interests versus 90 percent of American 
citizens. Powerful special interests, 90 percent of American citizens, 
and this Chamber tonight is prepared to vote for that powerful special 
interest instead of the American people.
  That is not the way it is supposed to be in our country. In fact, the 
first three words of our Constitution sum it up: ``We the people.'' The 
whole idea was that, contrary to Europe where there was this powerful, 
elite class and monarchies and Kings and Queens who made decisions for 
the people, here we were going to have a system of government that was 
responsive to the people. Well, if we are going to be responsive to the 
people tonight, we will vote down this Monsanto DARK Act, the Deny 
Americans the Right to Know Act. Unfortunately, I am sorry to say--I am 
sorry to feed the cynicism across the country--that tonight, instead, 
you are going to see a majority vote with Monsanto and against the 
people. Our Founders wrote those three words, ``We the people,'' in 
supersized font. They put them in really big font so you can

[[Page S4899]]

read that part of the Constitution from across the room. You have to 
get very close up to read the rest. They put those three words in 
supersized font to remind all of us, the citizens, the legislators, the 
President, years and years later, decades later, centuries later, that 
is what our Constitution is all about.
  Jefferson summed this up. He said: We can only claim to be a republic 
to the extent that the decisions we make as a government reflect the 
will of the people. He said that will happen only if the people, each 
member of the citizenry, have an equal voice. What he was basically 
conveying in a powerful way is that in order to have a ``we the 
people'' government, you can run a test. This Jefferson test--he 
referred to it as the ``mother principle'' of our republic--was that we 
were only a republic if our decisions reflected the will of the people, 
and that would only happen if people, each member of the citizenry, 
have an equal voice.
  But today citizens no longer have an equal voice because of a couple 
of court decisions that have created disproportionate voices, giving 
multimillionaires and billionaires a very powerful, loud voice and 
giving ordinary people a very tiny, quiet voice.
  The first of these decisions was Buckley v. Valeo, 40 years ago. The 
second was Citizens United. These two decisions turn our Constitution 
on its head. They change it from ``We the people,'' and they take the 
word ``people,'' and they pluck it out of our Constitution, and they 
change it to the word ``powerful''--``We the powerful.'' That is what 
those two corporate decisions do because they allow the very wealthy 
and they allow powerful corporations to spend unlimited sums in 
campaigns in America, and that spending corrupts this body so that when 
this body is making a choice between that powerful special interests 
and the people, it chooses the powerful special interests. That vote--
that type of vote--is being held tonight. You are going to see Members 
of this body voting with that powerful special interest rather than the 
people.
  So let's return to this Monsanto loophole No. 2. Essentially, if this 
bill were a true labeling bill it would do this: This is a poster of a 
Campbell's label. Now Campbell's, like Mars, values its integrity with 
its customers, so it put a simple label on its soup that states 
``Partially produced with genetic engineering.'' Then it says ``For 
more information about G.M.O. ingredients, visit [our Web site].'' And 
it lists the Web site. Well, that is pretty cool. They are going the 
extra step. They are not only saying, yes, there are GMO ingredients, 
but we will give you all the details on our Web site. The customer at 
the store, at the point of sale, immediately has an answer to the 
question, and they know where to go for immediate information.
  Mars, Campbell's, and so many other big companies--those that value 
honesty and integrity with their customers--are answering the questions 
of customers even though at this point it is not required by law.
  Let's go back again to that Mars label on Peanut M&Ms: ``Partially 
produced with genetic engineering.'' Campbell's says ``Partially 
produced with genetic engineering.'' They chose the same phrase even 
though there is no law that lays it out.
  Why can't we have a bill that says that if there are GMO ingredients 
you will put below your ingredients list ``Partially produced with 
genetic engineering.'' Why can't we have that? That would be an honest 
labeling bill.
  This is being done voluntarily right now. Under this bill that is 
coming up, it can still be done voluntarily. But the proponents of this 
bill aren't saying it is a voluntary labeling bill; they are saying 
this is a mandatory labeling bill. This is simply not true. This is a 
voluntary option.
  Another option is to put a symbol on the package--a symbol to be 
chosen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That would be 
a reasonable way to go. What if we said you either need to put in this 
phrase and maybe a Web site to go to for more information or you can 
put in a symbol? Brazil uses a symbol. They use a T in a triangle. Why 
do they use a T? Because T means transgenetic, which means one gene has 
been plucked out and inserted into another. It is another way of saying 
bioengineering. We can use Brazil's approach--a T with a triangle. It 
is easy to see at the bottom. We can take a B for bioengineering and 
put it in a circle or we can proceed to put the letters GMO in a 
rectangle. It doesn't really matter what the symbol is, as long as it 
has some connection, and an ordinary consumer knows the answer to the 
question if a symbol is there that means it is partially produced with 
genetic engineering.

  So a requirement for a phrase or a symbol--that would be a labeling 
bill. But they are voluntary now, and they are voluntary in this bill.
  What is required if you don't voluntarily put this phrase or 
voluntarily put a symbol? Here is what is required.
  All right. I wonder if anyone in this Chamber can look at this 
computer code, this box, and tell me if there are GMO ingredients in 
this product. Well, humans are not very good at reading computer boxes, 
so I think I can safely say that no one here can look at this box and 
tell me if there are GMO ingredients. It says to ``scan here for more 
food information.'' What type of information would that be? There is no 
connection to GMOs. It is just any old food information. It could be 
information about the entire product line of this company. What food do 
they produce? It could be information about the details of what type of 
tomato puree it has or about what type of wheat flour or how much there 
is in it. Or maybe it is a repetition of the other list of how much 
sugar is there or how much glucose or how much salt or how many 
calories or so on and so forth--everything that might go into the 
ingredients. No one can look at this code and know that has anything to 
do with saying that this is a GMO product. And that is the idea.
  So I proposed an amendment. The amendment simply says that instead of 
saying ``Scan here for more food information,'' it says ``Scan here for 
more GMO food information'' or, alternatively, it could be ``Scan here 
for more information on GMO ingredients of this product.'' But see, 
that would actually be a label. That would be a GMO label. That would 
actually be honestly labeling the product, and Monsanto is determined 
that the products not be labeled.
  So perhaps we are wondering, what do we do with this code? Just scan 
it. Well, most Americans have never scanned something with a 
smartphone. You can get an app and you can put it on your phone and you 
can take a picture of this, and it can take you to a Web site. That is 
what they are talking about. OK. That is an obstacle course. It is an 
obstacle course because you have to have your phone with you. You have 
to have wireless service in the grocery store. You would have to have a 
digital plan on your phone. Most importantly, you would have to be 
willing to take the enormous amount of time that it takes.
  If what is on the package is ``Partially produced with genetic 
engineering,'' I flip it over, and I see it in one second. I know the 
answer. I can compare five products in 5 seconds. That is functional 
for a consumer shopping in a grocery store. Maybe you have 20 things on 
your list. You spend 5 seconds reviewing products on GMO ingredients. 
That is 100 seconds.
  Here you would probably have to spend one-half an hour to go to five 
different Web sites and scroll through all the information to try to 
find the answer--that is, if you had a smartphone and you had an app 
for reading this and you wanted to spend your digital time doing that. 
No shopper--no shopper--is going to make use of this in ordinary 
shopping in a grocery store to make decisions. That is the whole idea. 
Set up an obstacle course to ensure that shoppers never find out that 
there are GMO ingredients, not in any fashion that helps them at the 
point of sale.
  Some say, of course, that people don't have to have a smartphone. We 
will ask stores to set up a scanner. Well, I found this interesting 
because when there wasn't a price on a product that I was shopping for 
one Christmas, I asked somebody who worked in the store--I said: Hey, 
what is the price of this product?
  And they said: Oh, well, there is a scanner here in the store 
somewhere, and you can scan the code on this, and you can find out 
about the price.
  They weren't sure where the scanner was, and they went and checked 
and found out where the scanner was. They

[[Page S4900]]

helped me find the scanner, and the scanner didn't work. They said: We 
think there is another scanner in the store somewhere. And they checked 
that out, and it was on the far side of the store--all of which shows 
you the ridiculousness of this whole scanning option, this whole 
obstacle course being set up.
  What really bothers me the most is that the Members here are 
presenting this as a mandatory GMO labeling bill when they know darn 
well it doesn't require a GMO label. That really bothers me. It is 
deception of the public.
  (Mr. ROBERTS assumed the Chair.)
  That is not the only problem with this bill. Monsanto was very 
thorough in the number of loopholes they included. Here is of the third 
one. The bill prohibits basic enforcement of its own provisions. I know 
you are thinking it cannot be true that, unlike every other labeling 
requirement we have which has penalties if you don't participate in it 
according to the rules, this law has no penalties. Well, I am sorry to 
say that is the case. There are no penalties in this bill. Isn't that 
amazing? Even if you ignore this bill completely, the U.S. Department 
of Agriculture doesn't have the power to tell you not to sell your food 
in the grocery stores. It doesn't have the power to tell you to recall 
your products from the grocery stores. It doesn't have the power to 
levy a fine on you, no. Here is the only thing that comes close to 
being a penalty in this bill. It says the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture can audit to determine whether you are complying, and they 
can release the results of that audit to the public.
  So if you choose to not proceed in any way to adhere to this law, you 
get an audit, and the Department, after a long period of time, says: 
Well, OK, we are telling the public we audited you and you are not 
compliant with the law. And you say: Oh, my goodness. That really 
worries me.
  Of course, it wouldn't worry you at all. No civil fine, no impact on 
the distribution of your products, no recall of your product, no teeth. 
This is like the old man whose teeth have all fallen out, and all they 
can do is gum the food. That is what this law is like. They can just 
kind of gum a little bit, which doesn't worry anyone.
  It is kind of amazing the three levels of complete protection 
Monsanto incorporated into this bill--the three levels of completely 
betraying the American public, those 9 out of 10 Americans who want a 
very simple, a very simple label on their food products. Let me put it 
another way on this enforcement provision. This bill would create the 
first and only food label without a fine for violators--the first and 
only food label without a fine for violators.
  We have had other food label requirements. I mentioned one that if 
you have farmed fish, you have to put a label on it that it has been 
farmed rather than wild caught, and you sell it in a grocery store.
  We can look at another that is called COOL, C-O-O-L, country-of-
origin labeling. COOL is something that has disappeared from the 
American lawbooks. It has disappeared because of a trade agreement 
called WTO, the World Trade Organization, something the United States 
signed up to. In this World Trade Organization, someone can complain 
that your requirements for disclosure inhibit the entry of their 
products into the market. So various countries complained that labeling 
meat, chicken, or pork and beef, specifically--labeling them would 
unfairly prejudice people against buying their out-of-country beef or 
their out-of-country pork. I will tell you something. I want to live in 
a country where an American citizen who wants to support American 
ranchers can make that decision when they buy their beef, when they buy 
their steak, when they buy their pork chops. That should be the right 
of every consumer to choose to buy a product grown in America by red, 
white, and blue American ranchers.
  But we signed a trade agreement that gave away our sovereignty on 
this issue to an international tribunal, an international tribunal that 
has no stake in the future of America. It has no stake in our vision, 
our ``we the people'' Republic. We gave away our sovereignty and that 
court said: No, that discriminates. They didn't see it as the consumer 
right to choose, as simply information that would be provided, no. They 
said that discriminates and therefore we are striking down the American 
law.
  Our law, our COOL law--it wasn't struck down by a vote on the floor 
of the Senate, it wasn't struck down by some amendment slipped into a 
last-minute bill over in the House, it wasn't struck down because a 
coalition of American ranchers wanted to strike it down, it was struck 
down by a court that had no foundation in America, but we were 
controlled by it because we gave away our sovereignty.
  By the way, that is something we should be very concerned about when 
thinking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership because that can have an 
impact as well on the flow of goods, and I might just take a while to 
address that, but right now what I wanted to convey is before the WTO 
court struck down our country-of-origin labeling law, there were teeth 
in that law, teeth that we put in the law, teeth that were put into the 
law on the floor of the Senate and on the floor of the House. It 
provided a fine if you didn't comply. You had to label where the meat 
was grown. That was great because it meant that people followed the 
law. But in this case do we have the same fine structure that was in 
country-of-origin labeling or that affects other provisions like, for 
example, labeling fish as wild? No, we don't.
  We even require labeling as to whether juice is fresh squeezed or 
reconstituted. Why is that? Because the consumer wants to know, and it 
is their right to know. In fact, this belief that the consumer right to 
know about the food they put in their mouth is so powerful--so 
powerful--that the advocates for this bill put forward the idea that 
this actually provides that information, that it actually labels it 
when it doesn't, when it doesn't say it is a GMO product, but it is a 
kind of testimony as to how powerful that consumer concern is. So there 
we are with these three fundamental loopholes in this bill that serve 
Monsanto very well.
  You can see now why this is simply a repackaged version of the 
earlier DARK Act, the Deny Americans the Right to Know Act. That is why 
some have called this the DARK Act 2.0, because it is simply a 
rehashing of what we saw previously.
  This is representational. It is a quote from a letter to Senators 
from a group of 76 pro-organic organizations and farmer groups. They 
are writing specifically about this act we have before us tonight, the 
DARK Act 2.0, that we will be voting on tonight--this act that tonight 
we will be voting on that takes away the power of States to put the 
type of label on the package that consumers want across this entire 
country.
  This is what they said: ``We oppose the bill because it is actually a 
non-labeling bill under the guise of a mandatory labeling bill.''
  Well, who are these organizations? Let's just give them their 
opportunity to be recognized.
  The Center for Food Safety, Food & Water Watch, the Abundance 
Cooperative Market, the Beyond Pesticides, the BioSafety Alliance, the 
Cedar Circle Farm & Education Center, the Central Park West CSA, 
Citizens for GMO Labeling, Crop CSA, Crush Wine & Spirits, Dr. 
Bronner's, the East New York Farms, the Empire State Consumer Project, 
the Family Farm Defenders, Farm Aid, Food Democracy Now, Foundation 
Earth, Friends of the Earth, Genesis Farm, the GMO Action Alliance, GMO 
Free NY, GMO Free USA, GMO Inside, Good Earth Natural Foods, iEatGreen, 
the Institute for Responsible Technology, the International Center for 
Technology Assessment, Katchkie Farm, the Institute for Responsible 
Technology, the International Center for Technology Assessment, the 
Institute for Responsible Technology, the Keep the Soil in Organic 
Coalition, Diesel Lane Farm, Kezialain Farm, the LIC Brewery, Maine 
Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, the Midwest Organic & 
Sustainable Education Service, Miskell's Premium Organics, Moms Across 
America, the National Family Farm Coalition, the National Organic 
Coalition, Nature's Path, the Nine Mile Market, the Non-GMO Project.
  I am reading all these names to convey how, within just a few days, 
just a short period of time in which this bill has been brought to this 
floor in a fashion that completely bypassed committee process in the 
U.S. Senate, how many have responded. I am only partway through this 
list so we will give

[[Page S4901]]

respect and voice to all of these organizations: Nutiva, the Northeast 
Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, the Northeast Organic Farming 
Association, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the 
Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire, the Northeast 
Organic Farming Association of Vermont, NYC H2O, Oregon Right to Know, 
the Organic Consumers Association, the Organic Farmers' Agency for 
Relationship Marketing, the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, 
Our Family Farms, PCC Natural Markets, the Pesticide Action Network 
North America, Presence Marketing, Regeneration Vermont, the Riverside-
Salem United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ, Rodale Institute, 
the Rural Advancement Foundation International, Rural Vermont, the 
Sierra Club, Slow Food California, Slow Food Hudson Valley, Slow Food 
North Shore, Slow Food USA, Soil Not Oil Coalition, Sunnyside CSA, the 
Cornucopia Institute, the Organic & Non-GMO Report, the U.S. Public 
Interest Research Group, Vermont Public Interest Research Group, 
Vermont Right to Know GMOs Coalition, and Wood Prairie Farm.
  Now, if this bill had gone to committee, there would have been people 
coming to testify pro and against this all-new definition put here on 
the Senate floor with no review. They would have analyzed it. They 
would have educated Members of the Senate about why this new definition 
was included in the bill. Senators would have been able to ask 
questions directly of the sponsors, such as, when did you decide to use 
a definition that excludes the major products from GMO Monsanto crops 
in America? When did you decide to do that? They could have asked the 
question: Why did you decide to do it?
  Doesn't this mislead the public--pretending to cover GMO products but 
slipping in a definition that excludes the big three in America--the 
GMO soybeans, the GMO corn, and the GMO sugar beets? Isn't that a 
little misleading? They could have asked that question if there had 
been a committee hearing on this definition. And, in fact, they could 
have explored it further and asked: Why not use one of the definitions 
from the 64 countries around the world that have a mandatory GMO 
labeling bill that actually covers what most people consider to be GMO 
products?
  In fact, here is an interesting point about the definition included 
in this bill. This definition speaks about recombinant DNA--genetic 
modification through recombinant DNA--but there is a new technique 
called CRISPR that changes the genetic code with a completely different 
technology. Why isn't that included, or would it be included? That is a 
reasonable thing to ask. What about other new techniques for modifying 
genetic code? Someone might have asked: Why not include those future 
techniques rather than excluding them?
  In fact, if this definition had been examined in committee, we could 
have asked another question about something I referred to earlier, 
which was a second loophole in the definition. But before we talk about 
that, remember that we looked at the first part of this, which said 
that it has to contain genetic material. I have already explained how 
it is that the major products--the oil, high-fructose corn syrup, sugar 
from genetically modified plants--don't actually contain genetic 
materials. That is a big loophole.
  If this bill had been in committee, my sincere colleagues exploring 
this could have asked about this second piece of the definition that 
says that it only refers to a food as ``bioengineered'' if the 
modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional 
breeding or found in nature. Well, that is very interesting. Why is 
that in the bill? Is that designed to allow a genetically modified 
plant, under this provision, to be considered nongenetically modified 
because it might possibly have been obtained through conventional 
breeding or is found in nature? I don't know why this was included 
because there has never been a hearing on this definition.
  So here we are, violating a major premise that Americans believe--
Americans who are Republicans, who are Democrats, who are Independents. 
That major premise is that they have a right to know what is in the 
food they put into their mouths. And this says: Well, you know what, we 
are not going to define it as GMO, even if it is genetically modified, 
if it could possibly be found in nature.
  I would love to know exactly what executive came up with this phrase 
and what product they are trying to protect, but we don't know because 
no one will tell us. I would be interested in having Senator Roberts, 
who leads the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, come 
and tell us where this phrase came from, who suggested it, and why it 
was suggested.
  I will tell you what it makes me think of. I talked earlier about the 
fact that with the massive application of glyphosate weedkiller across 
America--in a moment, I will show you how much of an increase there has 
been--with that massive application on millions of acres across this 
country, so many weeds have been exposed that, slowly, genetic 
mutations in the weeds that make the weeds naturally resistant to 
glyphosate have, in fact, started to spread because those are the weeds 
that can reproduce because they are not killed by the glyphosate. So we 
have this growth in superweeds, essentially through natural selection 
driven by this massive application of weedkiller. Can one say, 
therefore, that we now have resistance to glyphosate found in nature? 
We find it in the weeds. The weeds haven't been genetically modified; 
they have been modified through the driving force of millions of tons 
of weedkiller applied across America. The natural mutations that occur 
in nature have slowly started to spread as those weeds survive and 
reproduce. So is this another way of saying that the GMO crops--the 
Monsanto big three--are not actually GMO because they are resistant to 
glyphosate and can be found in nature? It sure sounds like that is what 
is going on here.
  There is something interesting here as well. This first loophole, 
which says ``contains genetic material'' only provides a free pass for 
the derivatives of the big three crops. By that, I mean the soybean oil 
that comes from GMO soybean, the sugar that comes from GMO sugar, and 
the high-fructose syrup that comes from GMO corn. But this second 
loophole here could be a way of saying that even the GMO corn itself, 
if you were to eat it as corn on the cob, wouldn't be GMO because it is 
resistant to glyphosate and is found in nature. I am not sure if that 
is what drove this because there was no committee hearing; there was no 
explanation; there was no investigation; there was no testing of what 
is here.
  I made reference to the fact that the massive application of 
glyphosate is, in fact, changing what is happening in America and 
producing superweeds, but I thought it would be useful to show how much 
that has changed.
  This chart shows a couple of things. First, let's look at the 
increased use of glyphosate--and that is Monsanto's Roundup product. It 
was introduced around 1994 here, and we are talking about 7.4 million, 
I believe that was--I want to read the notes to be sure I have it 
right. It is pounds or tons. I thought it was 7.4 million tons. I may 
be wrong. I may have to come back and correct that. But you can see 
that as the distribution of GMO seed for sugar beets and corn and 
soybeans spread across America, the application of this weedkiller 
increased enormously, until in 2012 we are up to 158.9 million--and I 
believe that is tons, but I will have to check. It is a massive amount 
of weedkiller being sprayed all across America.
  This note is from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They say:

       The wide-scale adoption of herbicide-resistant corn and soy 
     crops has drastically changed the agricultural landscape. 
     This resistance enables broad and non-targeted application of 
     herbicides that indiscriminately kills vegetation growing 
     around farm fields and in nearby habitat, including Milkweed.

  That is a statement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dated 
April 25, 2015.
  And we see here this massive increase in the application of 
weedkiller. That certainly supports what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service is saying. When they are referring to the fact that the spray 
affects nearby habitat, that reflects that this spray drifts in the 
wind and it affects weeds off the field, and one of the things it 
affects is milkweed. Milkweed is the foundational support plant, the

[[Page S4902]]

foundational food for the monarch butterfly. So we see a massive 
decrease in the monarch butterfly populations. A high here in 1997. In 
1997 there was very little glyphosate being applied, and then there was 
a massive increase, and by the time we get out here--and we don't have 
2013, 2014, 2015, but if we did have it, we would see high bars as 
well--we see the monarch population crashing. Sometimes we use the word 
``decimation,'' meaning one-tenth of a population, but this is in the 
more broad use of the term because it is far more than a reduction to 
one-tenth. It is more reduction than that. It is a smaller fraction 
from this high in 1997 on down to 2015. So that certainly is the case.
  Mr. President, I think this would be a good moment to take a pause 
and reserve the remainder of my time.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          A Tale of Two Cities

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise briefly to offer a tale of two 
cities. My comments are in a deep and disturbed reaction to the police 
shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in 
Minnesota. The videos of these shootings--one of an African-American 
father of five selling CDs outside a convenience store and one of a 
beloved African-American school cafeteria supervisor stopped for a 
broken taillight--are shocking. All people of good will have to ask--in 
the words that President Obama uttered an hour or so ago: ``What if 
this happened to somebody in your family?''
  The first city is the world of America's police officers. Our law 
enforcement officers are heroes. While we are told in the Scriptures 
that the greatest love is to lay one's life down for a friend, police 
officers risk their lives every day not just for friends but for people 
they have never even met.
  As a mayor and Governor, I came face to face with the danger of 
police work and went to too many funerals for local and State law 
enforcement officials who gave up their lives in service to their 
fellow citizens. Just in February of this year, Prince William County 
police officer Ashley Guindin was shot and killed on her first day 
working her beat after service as a Marine reservist and veteran. 
Police work is hard and dangerous, and we have to be grateful for those 
who do it.
  But here is one glimmer of hope. For a police officer, the threat of 
death by gun violence is being dramatically reduced even as our 
Nation's population grows and even as the number of weapons grows. The 
death of police officers by gun violence hit its peak in the early 
1970s. In 1973, 156 police officers in this country were shot and 
killed. In the first decade of the 2000s, that number had been reduced 
to an average of 57 police officers killed by gunfire every year. In 
2014, 49 police officers were killed by gunfire. Last year, the number 
of police officers killed by gunfire had come down to 42. This year, 
police deaths by gunfire are at the same level as 2015.
  We know that one police death by gunfire is too many, and police die 
in traffic accidents and by other work-related causes that also need 
our attention and resolution. But the experience of our Nation in the 
last 40 years--and this is what should give us hope--is this: We have 
made our police safer from death by gunshot. We have shown we can 
tackle a problem and begin to solve it, and that should give us hope 
that we can bring down the number of police killed by gunfire even 
more.
  The second city is the world of people, especially young African-
American males shot by the police. In 2015, according to painstaking 
research undertaken by the Guardian newspaper, 1,010 people were shot 
and killed by the police in the United States. Young African-American 
males were five times more likely to be killed by police than White 
males of the same age. This data suggests that 102 unarmed African-
American males were killed by police in 2015. This number was also five 
times the rate of unarmed Whites killed by police.
  How does this number compare to past years? It is nearly impossible 
to know. While deaths of law enforcement officers have been carefully 
tracked for decades, the deaths of individuals killed by the police in 
this country have only recently been counted. At least since the early 
1990s, there have been legal reporting requirements at the Federal 
level for such deaths, but actual data collection was weak, and it has 
not been until the last 2 years that there has been an effort driven by 
journalists and citizens to systematically collect this data. Even now, 
there are questions about whether current data is actually 
comprehensive.
  How did our Nation bring down the number of police killed by gunfire 
even as the Nation grew and even as the number of firearms in this 
country increased? Because we cared about it. Because we kept records 
and resolved to do better, and police departments trained to reduce 
risks and society supported those efforts with budgets and emotional 
commitment.
  How will our Nation bring down the number of people--especially 
African-American males, especially young African-American males, 
especially unarmed African American males--killed by police? We will 
decide that we must care about it. Again, in the words that President 
Obama said an hour or so ago, because we will decide that ``this is not 
just a black issue, it's an American issue.'' We must decide that we 
care about it. We must decide that we will keep rigorous records and 
resolve to do better, and provide better police training and support 
those efforts with our budgets and with our emotional commitment.
  If we have brought down the rate of police deaths by gunfire, we can 
bring down the rate of people killed by the police. But we cannot do it 
unless we care and unless we act.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, inquiry: We are not in a quorum call; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time under 
cloture to the Democratic leader.
  With that, 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. NELSON. 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. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to say a word on behalf of Senator 
Merkley. He has a very reasonable compromise on this GMO bill. I wish 
we would get a chance to vote on it because that is what the Senate is 
supposed to do--debate and to express our opinions and then vote. A 
bill that is a compromise, that was put together with great intentions, 
and yet one that did not go through the regular order, as hard as the 
negotiations were, and all the good intent--it is just a shame that the 
Senate is sitting here until--the parliamentary rules allow us to run a 
certain number of hours, which is going to occur somewhere around 10:30 
tonight, to proceed to the voting on this bill.
  The only expression of those of us who would like Senator Merkley to 
have a vote is that we got to vote on a motion to table an amendment 
that is unrelated, and it all has to do with the parliamentary 
procedure. It is a shame that we can't have the substance of a real 
debate on a real issue facing the country.


                           Zika Virus Funding

  Mr. President, as the Senate is biding its time, I can tell you we 
are not biding our time in Florida on two subjects, the first of which 
is that in these closing days of the Senate before we recess for the 
rest of the summer because of the political conventions--we had another 
11 cases of the Zika virus yesterday in Florida. There are now well 
over 250 cases in Florida, and in Florida there are somewhere around 40 
pregnant women who are infected with the Zika virus. You know what that 
means because you have seen the horrible pictures of the babies. When 
the Zika virus infects a pregnant female, it attacks the growing fetus 
and stunts the growth of the brain and the head. We are starting to see 
that now in about six babies born in the United States with 
microcephaly, three of

[[Page S4903]]

whom died at childbirth. You can imagine the tragedies for those 
families in which this is occurring.
  It could all be done if we would go ahead and develop the vaccine. 
There is a lot of promising research and development on a vaccine, but 
that means we need to get money through the National Institutes of 
Health, NIH, to continue the research. We have a Zika bill for 
supposedly $1.1 billion that was passed last week in the House, but it 
is not a serious bill. It has all of these poison pills in it. It has 
all of these political messages. It is totally partisan. In fact, one 
of the things it does to fund the so-called Zika bill from the House is 
to take money from the Medicaid Program in Puerto Rico--the very place 
that needs it the most right now because 3.5 million American citizens 
on that island are now at risk of being infected when that mosquito 
bites or by sexual transmission.
  Another part of the bill doesn't allow birth control through Planned 
Parenthood. Well, isn't that inimical to the very reason that you want 
to stop the pregnancy so that you don't have this tragedy? Yet the 
House bill is eliminating those funds.
  This is what I hope, and this is what I did this morning. I wrote to 
the majority leader, Senator McConnell, and asked him if he would take 
up the Zika bill that we passed in the Senate. It was bipartisan. It 
was overwhelmingly supported. It was not the $1.9 billion the President 
requested, but it was $1.1 billion. Take that up, send it out of here 
to the House so that before Congress adjourns at the end of next week, 
we would have a chance of having this money be there over the summer to 
continue the assistance to local governments for mosquito control, to 
continue the research and development of a vaccine, and to help with 
the medical counseling that is going on and is necessary not just in 
Florida, not just in Puerto Rico, but Zika is now in more than 30 
States in the Union. I wanted to talk about that one thing, which is, 
in fact, an emergency.


                  Central Everglades Planning Project

  Mr. President, I want to tell you about another emergency, and I want 
everyone to see these photographs. This blue-green algae is surrounding 
these docks. You can see how it has collected. The brown that you see 
mixed in with the blue and green is rotting algae.
  This photo shows a wave coming up on shore in Stuart, FL. This is the 
St. Lucie River. You can see how much algae is in the river. What is 
algae? Algae is a plant. It is a plant that is in water. Algae grows 
like this. Instead of being naturally balanced in the water column, it 
grows like this when it is fed a lot of fertilizer.
  Where is that fertilizer coming from? Right now it is coming from the 
excess nutrient-laden water that is being dumped out of Lake Okeechobee 
by the Corps of Engineers because the water has gotten too high in Lake 
Okeechobee, which is a huge lake. This water pressure is now 
threatening the integrity of the dike around the entire lake where 
thousands and thousands of people live. In order to relieve that 
pressure immediately, the Corps of Engineers has opened the floodgates. 
It has allowed that nutrient-rich water to flow out to the east into 
the St. Lucie River, which eventually empties into the Atlantic in 
Stuart, FL, and to the west of Lake Okeechobee and into the 
Caloosahatchee River, which goes out into Fort Myers. This is obviously 
a sick river.
  What happens when you get too many nutrients in the water? It causes 
the algae to grow. In order for the algae to grow--it is a plant--it 
sucks up the oxygen in the water and nothing can live. The fish can't 
breathe, and it becomes a dead river. That is a dead river. Not only is 
it dead, but all of the algae has floated to the surface, and now it 
has all of that brown rot.
  Can you imagine what that smells like? Well, as a Florida boy, to me 
it smells like rotting algae. If you have any kind of a respiratory 
situation or if you have allergies, go over there and take a deep 
breath on that dock and all of a sudden you will be coughing, wheezing, 
and sneezing. There are a lot of environmental medical health effects 
as well.
  What do we need to do? Well, here again, I have written to the two 
leaders as to what we should do, and I have written to the President 
about what we ought to do. Ultimately, you don't solve a problem like 
this until you get a reversal of over three-quarters of a century of 
diking and draining, and that is called the Everglades Restoration 
Plan. It has been going on for 20 years, and it is going to go on for 
another 20 years, but in the meantime, especially when we have 
emergencies like this, we need to tinker around with that plan.
  First of all, we need to get to the Water Resources Development Act, 
or WRDA, that we thought was going to come up in July and has the 
bipartisan support of the leaders on the environmental committee, 
Senator Inhofe and Senator Boxer. It is ready to go. We need to get it 
on the floor and pass it.
  The WRDA bill has the Corps of Engineers authorized plan to continue 
the Everglades restoration with what is called the Central Everglades 
Planning Project, which includes four or five projects over a number of 
years, so you don't have to dump the water to the east and west out of 
Lake Okeechobee and create situations like this.
  There is something else that we can do. We can hold as much water as 
possible north of the lake in the Kissimmee River basin during the time 
of the rains that are going to fill up Lake Okeechobee anyway; don't 
allow the water to go south into the lake.
  There is something else that the Corps of Engineers can do. They can 
send more water south by raising the level of the canals to the south 
just as they did a few months ago during an emergency. This is 
obviously an emergency, and they need to do that.
  There is one more thing that can be done. A couple of years ago, the 
people of Florida voted to amend the Florida constitution to provide 
for a dedicated source of funding that is already there--it is real 
estate taxes--and use that money for the acquisition of endangered 
lands and lands that are needed to preserve the environment. Thus, 
there is a ready source of funding for the State of Florida if they 
would appropriate the money to start purchasing lands south of the lake 
that would become storage areas in a flow way going south and cleansing 
areas as the water moves south into the river of grass otherwise known 
as the Florida Everglades.
  There are many things that have to be done all together, but what we 
could do here right now--before we adjourn next week--is bring up the 
WRDA bill. It is ready to go. It is bipartisan, and it will also 
include the projects that will start the process of alleviating this 
problem so that no river in America would have to experience what the 
St. Lucie River and the Caloosahatchee on the west side of Florida are 
experiencing now. Lord knows that I hope we can suddenly have a miracle 
around here and get this bipartisan legislation up and moving.
  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. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Shootings in Minneapolis and Baton Rouge

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it seems as though every time we turn 
around, we have a situation where some individual in the African-
American community is shot while in the custody of police, and many in 
America, myself included, are mourning the death of Alton Sterling and 
Philando Castile, the individuals who were shot in Minneapolis and 
Baton Rouge.
  The ubiquity of video cameras today has shown the rest of the country 
what African-Americans have always known: That with shocking and 
horrifying regularity, African-American men and boys are the victims of 
police--the very people who are charged with keeping all of us safe.
  I don't know what it is like to be fearful for my life during a 
traffic stop by law enforcement. Unacceptably, however, that is the 
everyday reality of Black Americans in our Nation. While I will never 
know this experience firsthand, I stand with communities of color and 
demand that those who swear to uphold our laws to protect and serve all 
in America do so equally and that they are held accountable when they 
don't.

[[Page S4904]]

  We must also realize that this is not just a police problem; it is an 
American problem. We need to come to terms with our Nation's long 
history of racism and the many ways that racism continues to permeate 
nearly every aspect of our society.
  Our country has made enormous progress from the worst days of Jim 
Crow. We elected an African-American President to two terms, but there 
is an enormous difference between progress and success, and that 
difference is measured in Black lives cut short, the resegregation of 
our schools, health disparities, housing patterns, dropout rates, and 
incarceration rates.
  We will not end the scourge of racism until we understand that racism 
is not just Bull Connor, firehoses, and dogs. We will never solve the 
problem if we don't admit we have one.
  I was thinking about the situation back in the 1980s when I was 
working with a friend from across the street. He was actually the 
brother of the woman who lived across the street. He had come up to DC 
for a while and was helping me install some windows.
  We needed to go to a hardware store but didn't know exactly where the 
store was, so when we pulled up next to the sheriff's car, I asked my 
friend to roll down his window and ask the sheriff for directions to 
the hardware store. He looked over at the sheriff, and he turned back 
straight ahead. He just looked straight ahead and didn't say a word.
  Then I looked over and I saw the two sheriffs, and I saw the gun 
mounted between them at an upward angle. It was a shotgun or a rifle. 
But, as I looked to the right past him, I saw the absolute fear on his 
face. There was absolutely no way he was going to roll down his window 
and ask the sheriff--the sheriff in the car next to ours--for 
directions. To me it was just a casual interaction among folks getting 
a little bit of help, which was to him a potential life-threatening 
situation.
  Nobody in our society should live in fear of our public safety 
officials. Of course, I celebrate that the vast majority of our public 
safety officials treat everyone equally, but we need for 100 percent of 
our public safety teams to treat everyone equally. That small fraction 
that doesn't is responsible for an enormous number of lives cut short, 
and that is unacceptable, and we have to change that. We have to talk 
about it, and we have to wrestle with it.
  So, once again, it seems like this is the case every week or so. We 
have another death that seems like it should have been possible to 
avoid, and sometimes these deaths are very clearly ones of intentional 
infliction. We have to work hard together to change this.
  Mr. President, I thought it would be worthwhile to consider a little 
bit about the organics provision in the bill we are considering 
tonight. Now, there are several organics labeling provisions, and the 
sponsors of the bill said this is very wonderful stuff. I know that we 
only have one organic farmer that I am aware of in the Senate, and that 
individual is the Senator from Montana, Jon Tester. I have heard him 
speak to this issue. I know that he feels that the bill does not do for 
organics anything that the organic community doesn't already have. That 
is my understanding of his perspective.
  So it is important to call attention to the fact that many organic 
organizations across the country, despite the language that has been 
placed in this bill, are strongly opposed to it. They believe that if 
you are going to put out a bill that is a mandatory GMO labeling bill, 
it has to actually have mandatory GMO labeling in it. So let me read 
this from Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food 
Safety. Andrew says:

       Organic organizations, farmers and companies rightly fear 
     that this bill could change important regulations governing 
     the federal organic program including those prohibiting the 
     use of genetic engineering in organic. They also refuse to be 
     part of a sham labeling bill that blatantly discriminates 
     against low-income, rural, elderly and a disproportionately 
     high number of minority Americans.

  Then let me read this as well:

       Organic organizations, farmer groups and companies around 
     the nation representing millions of organic consumers and 
     thousands of organic farmers have voiced their opposition to 
     the discriminatory and deeply-flawed GMO labeling bill being 
     offered. Thirty-six major organic groups have signed on to a 
     letter sent by a national coalition of consumer, food safety, 
     farm, environmental, and religious groups to all members of 
     the Senate earlier this week. The groups condemn the so-
     called compromise bill which could be devastating to the 
     organic standard.

  Organic groups that have signed on to this letter include the 
following: Beyond Pesticides, Consumers Union, Center for Food Safety, 
Dr. Bronner's, Equal Exchange, Farm Aid, Food and Water Watch, Genesis 
Farm, Good Earth Natural Foods, Katchkie Farm, Keep the Soil in Organic 
Coalition, Kezialain Farm, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners 
Association, Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service, Miskell's 
Premium Organics, the National Grocers Coop, the National Organic 
Coalition, Nature's Path, the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers 
Alliance, the Northeast Organic Farming Association, the Northeast 
Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire, the Northeast Organic 
Farming Association of New York, the Northeast Organic Farming 
Association of Vermont, Nutiva, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm 
Association, Organically Grown Company, Organic Consumers Association, 
Organic Seed Alliance, Organic Farmers Agency for Relationship 
Marketing, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, Our Family 
Farms, PCC Family Farms, PCC Natural Markets, Rural Advancement 
Foundation International, the Organic & Non-GMO Report, Sunnyside CSA, 
and Wood Prairie Family Farm.
  So these are organic organizations, farmer groups, and companies from 
around the Nation that are representing millions of organic consumers 
and thousands of organic farmers who are voicing their opposition to 
the bill that we are considering in this Chamber tonight.
  So I thought that was worth noting.
  It is very important because one of the items that the proponents of 
this bill have said is that they have put some wonderful stuff in there 
for organic farmers. If there is wonderful stuff, why are the organic 
farmers saying that this bill could change important regulations 
governing the Federal organic program, including those prohibiting the 
use of genetic engineering or organic?

  That is right. You heard that it is actually possible that this bill 
would enable those growing GMO crops to label their crops organic--how 
completely absurd. What hall of mirrors have we entered into with the 
twisted definitions in this bill that GMO crops could be labeled 
organic because of this bill?
  Now, let me turn to why we are here on the floor waiting for these 30 
hours to run out. We attempted to strike a deal earlier today simply to 
have amendments voted on. In fact, get this: We agreed to vote on every 
single Republican amendment--every single one. We asked for the ability 
to vote on some Democratic amendments as well.
  Now, that is what the Senate used to do. This body was known as a 
deliberative body because people were actually here arguing with each 
other, debating with each other, offering amendments, debating the 
amendments, voting on the amendments, voting on the bills--almost 
always by simple majority. That is why this was a deliberative body. 
The Members brought the power of their life experiences into this room. 
They brought their intellect, their knowledge, their reading, and their 
wisdom into this room. They brought the stories of their constituents, 
the experiences from the front line in America into this room. They 
debated, and they argued, and they voted.
  That Senate is the opposite of what we are experiencing here at this 
moment--a Senate where the majority leader refuses to allow any 
amendments on these bills to be debated or to be voted on.
  Now, the unanimous consent proposal that I put forward a couple of 
hours ago said there are three Republican amendments that have been 
filed. Let's vote on all of them. One of them is from my colleague who 
is sitting in the chair, and that amendment puts a prohibition on 
Federal labeling. Now, I tell my colleague that if that was up, I would 
be voting against it, and I would be happy to explain why. He would be 
happy to explain why it is a good amendment, and that is called a 
debate. That is called a discussion. The vote is a decision in which we 
are all bringing our best insights to bear. But, unfortunately, we are 
not debating the amendment of my colleague on a prohibition on Federal 
labeling because the

[[Page S4905]]

majority leader refused to allow him to bring it up. He rejected the 
unanimous consent request that would allow the amendment of my 
colleague who is sitting in the chair to be considered.
  We agreed that the amendment of my colleague from Kentucky, Senator 
Paul, could be considered. His amendment seeks to clarify and make sure 
that there are no criminal penalties in this labeling law. Well, I 
would be happy to vote for that amendment, because there are no 
criminal penalties and there shouldn't be any, and if we want to put an 
exclamation point behind that through this particular amendment from my 
colleague, I would be fine with that. If he were allowed to bring up 
that amendment, maybe he would show some other aspects of it on the 
floor--some other ways that reverberate and some other ways that I 
don't actually recognize when I read his amendment.
  But he can't fill us in on the details of what his amendment would do 
because he is not allowed to bring it up. Even though he is a 
Republican, he is not allowed to bring it up, even though the Chamber 
is governed by a Republican majority. His own leader refuses to allow 
him to have his amendment brought up and debated. In fact, we agreed 
for another Republican amendment, the Murkowski amendment, on the 
labeling of genetically engineered salmon to be brought up and 
debated--an issue we have wrestled with here before. We have probably 
all heard most of the pros and cons. But perhaps in the formulation of 
this amendment, there are some new aspects that would have been brought 
to bear that would have influenced us to support it or to oppose it.
  But this Republican amendment can't be brought up because the 
Republican leader rejected a unanimous consent request that would have 
allowed all of these amendments to be brought up. In fact, there were 
only three Republican amendments, and we agreed to hear all of them 
and, in exchange, we asked for three Democratic amendments.
  I see that my colleague Senator Blumenthal has arrived to speak. I 
think I will come back and explain what those Democratic amendments 
were a bit from now.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                  Shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Merkley, 
for his very powerful arguments for improving this law. I wish to speak 
about the GMO labeling act. But before I do so, I wish to speak 
separately about concerns that are on the hearts and minds of every 
American today after the shootings that we have seen in Louisiana and 
Minnesota. These are incidents that weigh on our hearts and our minds 
as we watched--literally watched--the videos that have been played 
again and again and again on TV around the Nation.
  I echo President Obama's eloquently expressed concerns shared by many 
Americans after the recent tragic shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. 
My heart breaks for the families and communities. I agree with 
President Obama that acknowledging we must do better in no way 
contradicts our respect for law enforcement.
  As a former prosecutor, a U.S. attorney, and attorney general of my 
State for 20 years, I worked with law enforcement officials closely for 
more than two decades. I worked with them with great admiration for 
their courage and professionalism. I understand and appreciate the 
challenges they face every day, their selflessness in the line of duty, 
and their commitment to keeping our communities safe, often at great 
sacrifice to themselves.

  Tragedies like the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling 
threaten to undermine trust and understanding between law enforcement 
and the communities they serve. That is why I fought to pass the Death 
in Custody Reporting Act--bipartisan legislation which requires States 
to report to the U.S. Department of Justice information regarding 
individuals who die every year while in police custody or during the 
course of an arrest. I have also supported funding to help local law 
enforcement agencies cooperate and collaborate more closely with 
communities and build trust by purchasing and using body-worn cameras, 
which have been shown to reduce citizen complaints by as much as 88 
percent.
  We have much more to do in effectively assuring justice for 
communities of color. We must have an honest conversation about the 
role of race in society, not just in the disparities in the criminal 
justice system but in our economy, our media, and our communities. 
Words alone are insufficient. We must act. I will continue to work with 
my colleagues in Washington, across the country, and Connecticut to 
bring Americans together and make our society more just for all.
  As a separate part of the record, if there is no objection, Mr. 
President, I would like to continue our discussion about the GMO 
labeling bill. I regret very sincerely the absence of an opportunity to 
offer these amendments that might improve this bill and enable us to 
provide the American people with what they need and deserve--the best 
possible legislative product this body can provide, a legislative 
product that matches the desires of 90 percent of Americans to know 
more about what they are eating, the 15,000 Connecticut people who have 
corresponded with me, and the many individuals, activists, and 
advocates who tell me they believe they have a right to know what is in 
their food when it comes to GMOs.
  The science is beyond my advocacy, but the consumer protection issue 
is one all of us are experts on. We all know we need better and more 
information, and so to make access to that information more difficult 
and cumbersome and even costly for Americans flies in the face of what 
we regard as free and open and fair markets and free enterprise. It is 
more than just about the doctrines of deceptive and misleading 
marketing which the good guys in the world of business certainly want 
to avoid. It is about providing more information, as much accurate 
information as possible, because consumers have a right and a need to 
know. Throwing roadblocks in the way of that right doesn't do justice 
for them. They deserve better.
  So I will continue this fight. We are near an hour now where we will 
vote. I greatly respect the dedication of my colleagues who have worked 
hard on this measure. My very distinguished and able friend from 
Michigan Senator Stabenow is now with us. She and I are in agreement, 
my guess is, 99 percent of the time, and I respect as well our 
colleague Senator Roberts, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, but 
the issue here is supremely important to the health and well-being of 
Americans--not just today, not just children and families at this 
moment but for years and decades to come. While the science may be 
debated, the consumer protection issue is beyond doubt. Let's open 
information to the American consumers, make it more available, not less 
so; remove the obstacles, not create more hurdles; reduce the costs, 
not raise the expense; and provide the access that Americans need to 
full and fair information about GMOs that may be in their food.
  Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I couldn't agree more with my friend from Connecticut. I think 
probably 99 percent of the time we are voting the same way. There are 
good people on both sides of this discussion. There is a lot of 
emotion, and I think this issue around information and GMO labeling is 
really a proxy fight in many ways for those who support biotechnology, 
those who don't, and those who want to debate pesticides and other 
important issues that don't relate to labeling but have come into this 
situation.
  I think what we need to focus on is the fact that, A, people have a 
right to know information, how do we make sure it is done effectively, 
and at the same time we certainly don't want costs to be going up as 
was indicated. I know if we have 50 different labeling laws in 50 
different States, that means the cost of putting those labels on and 
manufacturing and to grocers and so on, it is going to go up and not 
down, which is why there was great concern in the House when the bill 
was passed there a year ago.
  So the question for us is, How do we make sure costs don't go up? How 
do we ensure we have a right to know? And how do we make sure we 
believe in the science and respect the science?

[[Page S4906]]

The FDA has said very clearly, in rejecting petitions to label under 
human health and safety laws, petition after petition, they have said 
the science does not show risk to human health.
  So looking at the National Academy of Sciences and the FDA and 
others, both world medical groups as well as those in this country, it 
is clear this is not a health and safety issue, but it is an 
information issue, and I believe it needs to be addressed, which is why 
the FDA, which handles the information and marketing, is the place 
where this belongs because the FDA does not believe it is in their 
jurisdiction related to science around food safety.
  So we know if we go back a moment--let me just say, before talking 
about labeling, I believe in supporting all sorts of agriculture. When 
I chaired the Agriculture Committee and we started working on the 5-
year farm bill a number of years ago--it is hard to believe we are 
halfway through it right now--but I said it was very important that we 
support all parts of agriculture and not pit one group against the 
other, which is one of my concerns right now in this whole debate, 
pitting one side against the other, because we didn't do that in the 
farm bill. We created great increases in organic research, organic 
checkoff and marketing as well as traditional production agriculture. 
We did some very exciting creative things for local food hubs and urban 
agriculture that had not been done before. We said we were going to 
support all of agriculture.
  I believe, from a consumer standpoint, if we give choices, then 
consumers will decide. We know also that the fastest growing sector of 
the food sector is organic, which is non-GMO, by the way, and one of 
the things we do is strengthen that label and make it clear for the 
public to know they are purchasing organic and a non-GMO product.
  We came out of the farm bill with all parts of agriculture working 
together and we won a good farm bill. I think probably one of, if not 
the most, progressive farm bills we have had, supporting all parts of 
agriculture because we weren't pitting one group against the other, 
which, unfortunately, that is what this debate has become right now.
  When the House almost exactly a year ago passed a bill to preempt 
States--I know Vermont passed a State law. When the House voted to 
indicate there shouldn't be 50 different States with 50 different 
labeling laws and passed a preemption, they included only voluntary 
labeling, and consumers called that the DARK Act because it wasn't a 
required mandatory labeling of information and transparency. So the 
House bill, with the voluntary process, came here and I opposed it. I 
opposed it at every turn and indicated we had to have a mandatory 
system of information and of labeling for consumers that should be done 
in a way that does not stigmatize biotechnology, and it should be done 
in a way that does not set up more costs for consumers by 50 different 
States with different labeling laws adding costs for grocery 
manufacturers and grocers and so on, which is what would happen if we 
had 50 different laws.
  I went through this at one time back years ago when we were debating 
fuel economy standards when California passed its own fuel economy 
standard for automobiles. As other States looked at that, they were 
trying to push the Federal Government--rightly so--and the industry 
said: We can't have 50 different standards for fuel economy. So we 
said: OK. You are right, but that means you have to have a national 
standard on fuel economy, and that is where we ended up.
  So the people of Vermont, first of all, should feel very good that 
what they have done has created this situation to get us to a national 
labeling program, but here's what happens if we do nothing right now. 
We have a couple of choices. One is that Vermont has a GMO label. We 
have two other States that are waiting to see if States around them 
pass labeling laws that at some point may come into this, but that is 
basically who is getting information. We talked about everyone should 
have information. Right there. Those are the folks who have labeling 
laws.
  There were attempts on the west coast to pass labeling laws, and 
those were not successful so this is what we have.
  Now what we are proposing is that everybody will have information, 
people in my home State of Michigan, people across the country, 
everybody will get information and there will have to be a mandatory 
label. We give three choices on food that contain GMOs, not voluntary 
but a mandatory labeling system. So what do we do and how is it 
different than what happened in the House?
  Well, first of all, as I have indicated, a national mandatory 
labeling requirement, and I will talk more about that in a moment.
  Secondly, in Vermont and at the State level, meat, eggs, cheese, and 
dairy are exempt--totally exempt. So someone called it the Vermont meat 
loophole. So we said: You know what. That is not acceptable. So we 
added 25,000 more food products under this law that we would be voting 
on tonight. On this bill, 25,000 more food products will be labeled for 
people to know whether they are getting GMO ingredients.
  Next, the organic label. I have to say the organic trade organization 
was extremely effective in the efforts in passing the farm bill. They 
came to me with four different items they were interested in 
including. It was tough to get all four of those. I didn't think we 
actually could get them in negotiations. After our tough negotiations, 
I appreciate that we actually were able to achieve all four requests of 
the Organic Trade Association.

  Even though they would prefer to have one kind of label, like 
Vermont, they understand this was a very big step forward for the 
organic community. It was a step forward to get mandatory requirement 
and accountability. And I very much respect and appreciate the fact 
that when they were able to achieve all four items they felt were 
critical for organic farmers, they indicated they were very supportive 
of that and what we are doing here.
  Then we made sure that State and Federal consumer laws were 
protected, so that the label is preempted, having a label, but 
enforcing penalties if there is fraud or misinformation or something 
else related to the label--those enforcement mechanisms are maintained. 
So that is where the enforcement comes from.
  The only way we are like the House is that we prevent a patchwork of 
50 different labeling laws. But everything else we have done builds on 
and strengthens the public's right to know as it relates to GMO 
ingredients.
  One of the big debates: OK, there are three different options. 
Vermont has words on the package, and we have some companies now that 
are doing that. They are going to indicate--regardless of what we do, 
they want the definition settled and they want a national policy, but 
based on consumer demand, they are going to proceed to have words on 
the package. I believe we will see more and more of that happening in 
the marketplace, companies responding to consumer demand.
  The other option we give is a label, an on-pack symbol. We don't 
specifically say ``GMO'' in a circle, but something like that.
  The third option we give is an electronic label. Some people say QR 
code, which actually came from the auto industry and stands for quick 
response code--when they were tracking labels and checking parts and 
other parts of the system, which actually has worked very well. But the 
fact is that some kind of electronic label--and technology is changing 
every day. Apps are changing every day. So there will probably be other 
options that are talked about other than a QR code.
  But the reality is, just as a number of groups right now that care 
about food and the environment have their own apps that give consumers 
information, this is the other option. You would be able to take your 
phone--by the way, according to Nielsen, 82 percent of the public has a 
smartphone--82 percent, not 10 percent--and we are expecting that to be 
more like 90 percent very shortly. You are able to scan, and 
immediately it will come up on the front--immediately, not hidden 
somewhere, not two or three clicks to get there, but you will 
immediately get information, yes or no, on whether there are GMOs. In 
fact, when you see whatever the code is, you are probably going to have 
a pretty good hint by that as well.
  So why do that? Well, some in the food industry would say there is a 
desire to make sure that when people are

[[Page S4907]]

given information about genetically engineered or genetically modified 
foods, that they actually get information such as ``The National 
Academy of Sciences says this is safe for human consumption.'' That is 
the reason.
  I think there is another reason for this, and the reason it has been 
suggested in other forms is so that people really do get more 
information about their food. The reality is that the No. 1 question 
people ask is about food allergies. It is very difficult to find that 
out right now. Going forward, I think we can create an effective, user-
friendly electronic label that will give people ``yes'' or ``no'' on 
not just GMOs but on food allergies.
  The next question was about antibiotics in meat. There are multiple 
questions people have that need to be answered, not just one. There are 
multiple things people are interested in.
  Despite the emotions around this debate, I think probably in the 
future we are going to see effective uses of our technology to give us 
more information in a user-friendly way.
  The other thing we do is say that the USDA has to review 
accessibility of broadband, accessibility of the technology before this 
starts, that they have to do that right away. They are required to and 
are given the authority to be able to put additional scanners in 
stores, so that if somebody doesn't have a phone, they can take the 
can, put it up to the scanner, and it will give them information about 
food allergies or GMOs or whatever. The first thing that comes up has 
to be GMOs.
  The USDA is required to look at accessibility because there are 
legitimate issues around accessibility that need to be addressed, and 
that is one of the things they are given the authority to address, and 
we need to make sure that continues to be addressed.
  But the final thing I will say about this is that companies, 
consumers, stores, grocery stores will drive this. Once we say this is 
it--we have companies right now saying: Great. Three options. We are 
doing this one because that is what our customers want.
  We have stores, great stores like Whole Foods, that say: You know 
what, you can have three options, but we are only going to allow an on-
pack symbol or words in our store.
  That is going to drive the marketplace. The marketplace is going to 
be driven by those who are involved--by consumers, by the companies, by 
others who make sure they are giving people the information the way 
they want it.
  Let me say just a couple of other things. I mentioned 25,000 
additional food products in the stores. Anything that is a GMO product, 
package, frozen, that includes some meat in it--we are going to be 
adding to the information consumers will have access to. I will give an 
example. Right now, fettuccine Alfredo is labeled in Vermont, but if 
you put chicken in it, it is not labeled. To go on, if you have a 
vegetable soup, it is labeled, but if it is beef vegetable soup, it is 
not. If there is even beef broth in it, it is not. I don't know how 
that makes sense, and yet that is the law under Vermont. I think people 
should be asking for more than what is going on in Vermont. Cheese 
pizza is labeled in Vermont, but if you put pepperoni on it, it is not, 
even though it still has GMO ingredients. So 25,000 additional products 
will be labeled because people have a right to know.
  Let me finally indicate again that we have strengthened the ``USDA 
Organic'' label. This is no small thing. This is very important. The 
public needs to know, has the right to know, that USDA Organic also 
means non-GMO and that that is a choice you have right now, to be able 
to make sure you are getting the products that have the kinds of 
ingredients you want.
  Again, I appreciate the emotionalism. In all honesty, I have to say 
this debate has gone in a lot of directions. A lot of things have been 
said that I certainly don't agree with. I question a lot of the things 
that have been said in terms of a factual nature. I also think we have 
gone into a lot of other tangents on things, debating other kinds of 
things and using the debate about the label as a proxy for a broader 
debate about biotechnology in the public. I appreciate and I respect 
that debate. Even though I disagree with things that are said, I 
respect that; that is why we are here.
  I also will say in conclusion that we have a responsibility to 
govern, and governing means that you have to come together and work 
together. If we are going to get things done, it has to be bipartisan, 
or it doesn't get done. That is just a fact.
  So if we are going to do something that is meaningful, that makes 
sure all of the country has the opportunity to have information and a 
national standard and the maximum amount of products labeled and that 
will protect the organic label in all of the country--by the way, the 
organic protections we have are not in the Vermont law. So if we are 
going to make sure all the provisions I talked about are not just 
available in some places but everyplace, that means we have to come 
together and work together. That means rough-and-tumble negotiations, 
tough negotiations. These are some of the toughest negotiations I have 
ever been in, and we have to be willing to have some give-and-take.
  In the climate we are in today, I know it is a lot easier to go to 
your corner and point fingers at the other side and to develop 
conspiracy theories and to create situations and say things that, 
frankly, are extremely disparaging about people's motives and so on, 
and that is unfortunate. But we also know that we are people of good 
will; that is why we get things done. We may disagree on this one 
particular issue, but we are a group who gets things done when we work 
together, when we respect all opinions, when we fight as hard as we can 
to get as much as we can for what we believe in and then stand together 
to be able to move forward.
  Debating is great. It is not enough. People expect us to actually get 
things done. And contrary to what was done in the House, we have a 
mandatory national labeling system with 25,000 additional products than 
what is currently being labeled in Vermont or proposed in other States. 
We strengthen the organic label. We protect consumer laws to be able to 
enforce when there is fraud or there are other mislabeling issues. And 
at the same time, we make sure that citizens across the country, not 
just in one part of the country, are getting their right to know in a 
way that provides accurate information.
  I thank everyone. I thank my partner, Senator Roberts. I appreciate 
the debate on all sides. I hope we are going to be coming to a 
conclusion shortly so that we can move on and actually implement and 
share information for consumers about how to access very important 
information not only about GMO ingredients and labeling, but I believe 
there are other important pieces of information for consumers to have 
as well. I think we should be looking for ways to make sure consumers 
get all of the kinds of information they are interested in as it 
relates to their food.
  Thanks again for everyone's hard work and patience this evening as we 
have held everyone later this evening.
  I would finally say one thing, if I might, and that is that I have 
worked in the last 24 hours to do everything I can to help my friends 
on the other side of this issue be able to get the votes they are 
interested in as it relates to amendments. Unfortunately, there was not 
agreement on how to do that. There was an offering two different times 
on amendments, to have an amendment vote on an important amendment, and 
folks opposed to the bill did not feel they wanted to do that, that 
that was enough. I respect that, but we now are at a point where we 
really need to come to a close and move forward on this important bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.


                      Defense Appropriations Bill

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this evening, both sides will have an 
opportunity to take the next step and begin debate on the fiscal year 
2017 Defense appropriations bill.
  President Obama's announcement yesterday about our troops in 
Afghanistan only underscores the Senate's need to take up and pass the 
Defense appropriations bill right now. Although I support a high level 
of force to train and equip the Afghan forces and conduct 
counterterrorism operations, the President's announcement reminds us of 
the need for this bill.
  The President made a commitment to our allies, and Senate Democrats

[[Page S4908]]

must join us in meeting our commitment to the force. The training to 
prepare forces for deployment to Afghanistan, the weapons they will 
carry, the spare parts and fuel consumed in training, and operations 
and the ammunition needed to execute their missions, not to mention 
their basic pay, is funded through this bill.
  Our all-volunteer force does not shrink from this commitment, and 
this Senate shouldn't fail our duty to provide for them. This funding 
is for current operations, for combat readiness, and for the commitment 
announced just yesterday by President Obama.
  Last month, the Secretary of Defense made a long-term commitment, 
stating that ``the United States will remain the most powerful military 
and main underwriter of security in the [Asia Pacific] region for 
decades to come.'' He made that commitment knowing our allies and the 
Chinese were listening to analyze our Nation's intentions and our 
plans. These promises cannot be upheld if we fail to fund the weapons 
systems, munitions, training, and personnel required to balance against 
China's plans to expand its sphere of influence in the region.
  We have a near-term and long-term need to pass this bill, and 
commitments like these made by the administration cannot be met--cannot 
be met--if our Democratic friends block this critical funding.
  I would remind everyone that at a time when we face an array of 
terror threats around the globe, we cannot afford to put politics above 
support for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines or our efforts 
to move the appropriations process forward. So I was troubled by a 
letter I received earlier today from Democratic leaders implying they 
might actually block this bipartisan bill and, with it, critical 
funding to provide for our warriors and provide for our national 
defense.
  They called for regular order, but I will remind my colleagues this 
bill is the epitome--the epitome--of regular order. The Senate passed 
the authorizing legislation--the National Defense Authorization Act. 
The bipartisan bill respects the budget caps in place. And it was 
reported out of the Committee on Appropriations with the support of 
every single Democrat and every single Republican on the committee.
  As the top Democrat on the Defense Subcommittee himself has said, 
``This defense bill takes a responsible approach to protecting our 
country--honoring the bipartisan budget deal in place,'' and the senior 
Democrat on the committee said of this bill that she is ``happy to 
support'' the bill.
  There is no excuse to filibuster this bill. Everybody in the 
committee supported it. It is consistent with the budget agreement 
reached last year. So I would urge all my colleagues to support moving 
forward to debate this important legislation they say they are in favor 
of.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are as patriotic as the Republicans. We 
support our military just as much as the Republicans do. We are led by 
a number of stalwart people, not the least of which is the ranking 
member on the Committee on Armed Services, Jack Reed. Jack Reed is a 
West Point graduate, a man who everyone respects--Democrats and 
Republicans--and he is a man of integrity. He is going to vote against 
moving forward on this bill. Barbara Mikulski, the matriarch of the 
Senate, someone who is respected worldwide for her integrity and the 
work she has done in the Senate, will vote no.
  We need a strong defense, and we acknowledge that, but we also 
understand that a strong defense is more than the Pentagon. The 
Pentagon would tell you that. They do not like the OCO funding that is 
being talked about, whispered about. To have a strong defense means 
more than the Pentagon, I repeat. It means making sure the Department 
of Homeland Security is well financed. We want to make sure the Drug 
Enforcement Administration is strong and well financed. We want to make 
sure the FBI is an agency that we take good care of. There are a lot of 
other entities we are concerned about.
  The Republican leader, I am stunned, is concerned because we sent him 
a letter yesterday; four Democratic leaders sent him a letter. We 
simply said that it is important we not be given a little dance step on 
this matter. We all know what they are trying to do here. We have a 
defense bill, it is an appropriations bill, and once that is done, the 
appropriations process will be wiped out, and we will be at the mercy 
of the Republicans in some form or fashion. With the defense bill done, 
everything else will be pushed away someplace else.
  I want to read just a few things. Time doesn't run out until 10:22, 
and I understand that, but I want to read a few things from the letter 
we wrote to the Republican leader. The letter was sent by me, Durbin, 
Schumer, and Murray. Here is what we said, among other things:

       Without strong, public assurance that you are committed to 
     honoring the core tenets of the bipartisan compromise--
     including fair funding, parity, and a rejection of poison 
     pill riders--through the completion of the full 
     appropriations process, we will no longer be able to support 
     proceeding to new appropriations bills.
       For example, the House has passed a Defense Appropriations 
     Bill that uses a budget gimmick to hand out extra taxpayer 
     dollars for the Pentagon, with no equivalent support for 
     domestic security and other initiatives important to the 
     middle class. Similarly, during consideration of the fiscal 
     year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, Senator McCain 
     offered an amendment to authorize an additional $18 billion 
     in overseas contingency operations--

  This is the gimmick--

       funding only for the Pentagon, a clear violation of the 
     parity principle. Senators Reed of Rhode Island and Mikulski 
     offered a competing amendment to increase OCO funding by $18 
     billion and provide a matching $18 billion to invest in 
     security at home by providing funding for law enforcement and 
     the Department of Homeland Security, invest in job creating 
     infrastructure and scientific research, and address national 
     emergencies like Zika, opioids, and access to clean drinking 
     water. However, the amendment fell on a largely party-line 
     vote.
       The willingness of Republicans to consider the McCain 
     amendment and to reject the Reed-Mikulski amendment, combined 
     with the reported desire of Senate Republicans to offer an 
     OCO amendment to the Defense appropriations bill sends a 
     deeply troubling signal about your willingness to appropriate 
     by the parity principle. Further, this unbalanced approach 
     does not truly keep Americans safe or protect our interests 
     abroad. Without sufficient funding for the vital national 
     security work done by local law enforcement agencies, 
     enforcement of sanctions and cutting off terrorist financing, 
     and counterterrorism, we hinder a coherent national security 
     policy.

  And here is the last paragraph of this letter.

       We urge you to publicly give your word that all 
     appropriations bills considered in both chambers and sent to 
     the President for his signature will comply with the 
     principle of fair funding, parity, and a rejection of poison 
     pill riders. If you cannot give us such assurance, we will be 
     forced to oppose proceeding to future appropriations bills 
     until you agree to keep your promises and honor our 
     agreement.

  This is signed by Reed, Durbin, Schumer, and Murray.
  So Mr. President, we really want to do the appropriations bills. We 
have had a little trouble, as you know. We have had this situation with 
the veterans bill. It brings back a Zika bill that has been formulated 
not here. We passed a very good Zika bill. It wasn't as much money as I 
wanted--$1.1 billion in emergency funding. It passed here by 89 votes. 
What do we get back from the House? What do we get back from the House? 
They whack Planned Parenthood. They have to do that. That is the only 
thing they can get out of the House Republicans. They cut $500 million 
from veterans, and that money is to be used for processing claims. We 
really need help with those. There is $500 million they take from 
ObamaCare, money from Ebola. And, of course, they have to do something 
about the EPA. You have to do something there or let's do something 
with the Clean Water Act.
  So that is all in this bill. What we sent to the House you wouldn't 
recognize in what we have back here. The Zika mosquitoes are still out 
floating around. And then, to make this bill even more strange--what we 
got back from the House--they stuck in a provision that said we can fly 
the Confederate flag in veterans cemeteries. How about that.
  So is there any reason we should be suspect about what is going on 
around here? Of course we are. And unless we hear something publicly 
from the Republican leader today, just as I indicated, that he publicly 
give his word that all appropriations bills considered

[[Page S4909]]

in both Chambers and sent to the President for his signature will 
comply with what we have talked about--fair funding, parity, and a 
rejection of poison pill riders--if we don't get that assurance, we are 
going to have move to go to a different plane, and it is just unfair to 
do anything else.
  All we need is the one example of what we have just been through--
Zika funding--which has all the craziness I just talked about. So if we 
want to talk about political games, this is a picture-perfect example 
of what happened on the veterans bill, and we are concerned the same 
thing would happen on what we are doing right now.
  So I am going to recommend to all my Senators that, until we have a 
public assurance from the Republican leader, we should vote no on this 
cloture vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hoeven). The majority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, one thing my good friend the Democratic 
leader always used to remind me of when he was the majority leader is 
the majority leader always gets the last word. So I will take advantage 
of that tonight.
  For anyone who may still be watching C-SPAN 2 at this late hour, let 
me suggest the Democratic Party ought to be renamed the ``dysfunction 
party.'' When they were in the majority they didn't function and when 
they are in the minority they do not function.
  Let's just take a look at the last couple of weeks. A Zika MILCON 
bill goes through here with every Democrat supporting it, and then all 
of a sudden they do not like it. A CARA bill goes through here with not 
a single Democrat opposing it, and then they refuse to sign the 
conference report. And now what the Democratic leader is saying is that 
the Republican Senate needs to guarantee what the democratic House will 
do as a condition for passing a bill through the Senate that every 
single Democrat on the Committee on Appropriations supported. It came 
out of committee unanimously.
  This is the definition of dysfunction. So, apparently, what we will 
witness here shortly is our Democratic friends, all of whom on the 
committee supported the bill, preventing us from taking it up because 
they want us to get a guarantee from the House as to what the House 
result will be. That is not the way it works. The way you pass a law is 
the Senate passes a bill, the House passes a bill, and you negotiate 
with each other and with the administration.
  So the hour is late and the die seems to be cast. It is my 
understanding that when I yield the floor, we will be going to a vote; 
is that correct, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 7 minutes remaining postcloture.
  Mr. McCONNELL. It is my understanding, Mr. President, that Senator 
Merkley----
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I don't know how long the Democratic leader wants to 
go on with this, but let me remind him of what he always reminded me--
that I will have the last word.
  Mr. REID. I have no doubt that is the case.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that when we finish our remarks, 
Senator Merkley be recognized for up to 2 minutes to make a motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The minority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I do have to say this. To call the 
Democratic Party the party of disunity--look at what is going on with 
my Republican colleagues. Look at what is going on. They are the party 
of Trump. So don't call us dysfunctional.
  The example given by my friend the Republican leader that we 
supported the bill dealing with Zika--we sure did. We had 98 votes. I 
mentioned that in my remarks. Of course we did, because it was 
emergency funding. It wasn't as much money as we wanted, but we 
accepted it because of the work done by Senators Murray and Blunt. But 
what have we gotten back from the House? It isn't even in the same 
category of the world. It is something totally different.
  So I say to my friend the Republican leader and to all of his 
colleagues: Please don't try this--that the Democratic Party is the 
party of disunity--when you are being led by Donald Trump.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I see the ranking member of the 
Appropriations Committee on the floor. I would recount to everyone that 
I said to her weeks and weeks ago that we will devote as much time as 
it takes to try to get back to a regular process and move appropriation 
bills across the floor. So we have devoted an enormous amount of time 
to try to get the appropriations process functioning again here in the 
Senate.
  I don't understand why the Democratic leadership refuses to honor 
what I think are the wishes of the majority of the Democrats on the 
committee who have been supporting these bills--most of which have come 
out of committee on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis and this 
particular defense bill, unanimously. They don't even want to go to it 
and let the Senate function.
  But I know the hour is late. That is the final observation I intend 
to make tonight.
  I understand Senator Merkley is going to make a motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, we have had a lively debate over this 
bill. I have argued today that it is deeply flawed in several key ways. 
This was emphasized in an editorial in the New York Times this morning. 
It said:

       The biggest problem with the Senate bill is that--instead 
     of requiring a simple label, as the Vermont law does--it 
     would allow food companies to put the information in 
     electronic codes that consumers would have to scan with 
     smartphones or at scanners installed at grocery stores. The 
     only reason to do this would be to make the information less 
     accessible.
       Another problem is that the bill might not cover some kinds 
     of genetic engineering. The Food and Drug Administration 
     warned that the bill ``would result in a somewhat narrow 
     scope of coverage''--for example, food that includes oil made 
     from genetically engineered soybeans might not need to be 
     labeled.

  We have amendments to fix these things. If one really believes in a 
mandatory GMO labeling bill, these amendments would be allowed to come 
up and be debated. We offered to agree for every Republican amendment 
filed to be debated and voted on. We asked, simply, for three 
amendments on the Democratic side, in balance to all the Republican 
amendments being considered, and that was objected to by the majority 
leader.
  So let me just close by saying that I will offer a motion to take 
away the roadblock to amendments put in place, and that is McConnell 
amendment No. 4936. I will move to table that amendment so that 
amendments--Republican amendments, Democratic amendments, six 
amendments, three on each side--can be considered so we can truly 
debate and fix the problems that are in this bill.
  I also want to close by thanking my colleague from Michigan, who has 
done an incredible effort. She will be so relieved to have this bill 
completed. We have debated many, many times. Really, there is so much 
we agree on--a single national standard that will work across this 
country, a single national GMO standard. She has made the case that we 
are achieving that. I responded: Not quite, and we need to still fix 
the bill. That is the type of debate we should have on the floor of the 
Senate, and it is why we should allow amendments.


                           Amendment No. 4936

  Mr. President, I move to table McConnell amendment No. 4936, and ask 
for the yeas and nays, so that we could consider amendments such as 
those presented by my Republican colleagues and my Democratic 
colleagues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. 
Graham), the

[[Page S4910]]

Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) and 
the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer) 
and the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced---yeas 31, nays 62, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 122 Leg.]

                                YEAS--31

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

                                NAYS--62

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

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Boxer
     Coats
     Coons
     Graham
     Heller
     Lee
     Vitter
  The motion was rejected.


                             Change of Vote

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on rollcall vote No. 122, I voted nay. It 
was my intention to vote yea. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that I 
be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome of 
the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The foregoing tally has been changed to reflect the above order.)


                       Vote on Amendment No. 4936

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
4936.
  The amendment (No. 4936) was rejected.


            Vote on Motion to Concur with Amendment No. 4935

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question now 
occurs on agreeing to the motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 
764 with amendment No. 4935.
  The yeas and nays have been previously ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. 
Graham), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Utah 
(Mr. Lee) and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer) 
and the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced---yeas 63, nays 30, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 123 Leg.]

                                YEAS--63

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

                                NAYS--30

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

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Boxer
     Coats
     Coons
     Graham
     Heller
     Lee
     Vitter
  The motion was agreed to.

                          ____________________