[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 113 (Wednesday, July 13, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5028-S5035]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2016

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Chair lays 
before the Senate the House message to accompany H.R. 636, which the 
clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Resolved, That the House agree to the amendment of the 
     Senate to the text of the bill (H.R. 636) entitled ``An Act 
     to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permanently 
     extend increased expensing limitations, and for other 
     purposes,'' with House amendments to Senate amendments.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                            Motion to Concur

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendments to 
the Senate amendments to H.R. 636.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 1:45 
p.m. will be equally divided between the leaders or their designees.
  The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, before I give my speech, I ask unanimous 
consent for Senator Portman to have 1 minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


               Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Bill

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and, in less than a 
minute, I want to acknowledge something historic that just happened on 
this floor--a 90-to-2 vote for the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery 
Act. This is the Senate agreeing with the House to do something 
important to address this epidemic of heroin and prescription drug 
abuse, and I congratulate my colleague Sheldon Whitehouse, my coauthor, 
and encourage all my colleagues to now get this signed as soon as 
possible so we can get it out to our communities to help.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                      Reforming the Budget Process

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to discuss America's broken budget 
process and the Senate Budget Committee's continuing effort to provide 
solutions to place our Nation's budget on a better, sustainable path.
  Last year, on May 5, the Senate passed its first balanced 10-year 
budget since 2001. This was a big deal. It was thoroughly considered 
and amended to the tune of 71 rollcall votes, and 146 amendments 
adopted overall, and it provided an enforceable plan to get the 
Nation's exploding debt under control.
  On May 22, just 17 days later, we enacted legislation that violated 
the budget. Congress didn't even abide by the budget for a whole month. 
This trend has continued throughout the 114th Congress. Since passing 
its fiscal year 2016 budget plan, Congress has been unable to achieve 
any reduction in overspending called for in the balanced budget. 
Instead, Congress enacted legislation increasing spending by nearly 
$150 billion and reducing revenue by $478 billion over the 10-year 
window. Much of these violations were enacted as part of the end-of-
the-year omnibus spending bill, which was drafted behind closed doors 
and passed under threat of government shutdown, completely outside of 
regular order.
  The truth is, America's budget process is broken, and it is 
preventing Congress from tackling the pressing fiscal challenges facing 
our country. The current budget process is designed only to spend and 
fails hard-working taxpayers. Each year, nearly $3 trillion is spent by 
Washington without any meaningful congressional review or 
consideration. What America really needs is a budget process built to 
save.
  The last time Congress reformed the budget process was in 1974. Times 
have changed, and the 40-year-old process has only grown more 
dysfunctional and antiquated. Until 1998, Congress had never failed to 
pass a budget, but in the last 15 years, Congress failed to pass a 
budget resolution more than half the time. Today, budgets from Congress 
and the President are increasingly tossed aside, leaving the country 
with no long-term fiscal plan.
  Our appropriations process is broken. Spending bills are nearly 
always late, creating crippling uncertainty for agencies, businesses, 
and the American people. We have completed all appropriations bills on 
time in only 4 of the last 45 years. In 15 of those years, we did not 
pass one appropriations bill on time. Instead of well-considered 
funding decisions, the government operates on short-term spending bills 
or continuing resolutions. We have had to use 173 short-term spending 
bills since 1977, and that is just 3 years after the Budget Act was 
passed.
  That is just the portion of the budget Congress has control over. 
Today, a growing portion of our budget is devoted to entitlements and 
other automatic spending. When Congress last reformed the budget 
process in 1974, this type of spending constituted only one-third of 
what was spent and two-thirds of the spending provided annually.
  This chart points that out: 1966, 33 percent on automatic pilot, 67 
percent, annual review. Now, 70 percent automatic spending, 30 percent 
under annual review. And this is growing automatically. These don't 
have guaranteed revenue sources. Whenever the revenue source doesn't 
meet up with what we have already said would automatically be paid, it 
cuts into this 30 percent that we get for annual review--
automatically--and reduces the amount we get to actually make decisions 
on.
  I have talked about what could happen if the interest rates go up--
$19 trillion in debt. So $20 trillion at a 1-percent interest rate 
would cost us $200 billion a year. The norm, 5 percent, would cost us 
1,000 billion, or $1 trillion, and we only get to make decisions--this 
part of it--on $1,070 billion. So how would we fund everything the 
government does on $70 billion?
  This crisis is coming. In 2016, 70 percent of Federal spending is 
provided automatically, essentially on autopay year after year without 
congressional review or approval. In 15 years, this

[[Page S5029]]

runaway spending and interest will consume all of the taxes and 
revenues the Federal Government collects crowding out the functions we 
normally associate with good government.
  What would those be? Some really important ones would be national 
defense and border security, maybe transportation, maybe education.
  This mandatory spending operates with no connection between funding 
decisions and program performance. Given that this spending often 
continues in perpetuity, the least we can do is ensure that it is spent 
effectively.
  I want to repeat that part. The mandatory spending operates with no 
connection between funding decisions and program performance. There are 
a whole bunch of programs out here in the 70 percent that we never have 
to look at because they are going to get their money anyway. Nobody 
lobbies us on it because they get their money, anyway. So we don't have 
any program performance. How many of those do we suppose are not doing 
what they were originally intended to do? I am willing to bet a lot of 
them. In fact, I have looked at them and know it is a lot of them.
  The good news is there are bipartisan steps Congress can take now to 
fix America's broken budget process. The Senate Budget Committee has 
held a series of hearings and meetings to discuss bipartisan solutions 
that would, No. 1, improve the way Congress considers budget 
legislation, No. 2, update the antiquated accounting rules that would 
affect the information Congress uses to make tax and spending 
decisions, and, No. 3, set the country's finances on a sustainable path 
by establishing enforceable long-term fiscal targets.
  Congress can begin to regain control of the Nation's finances by 
reforming the procedures it uses to consider budget legislation. Based 
on conversations with Democratic and Republican members of my 
committee, I am pursuing the following reforms with the understanding 
that they will receive bipartisan support:
  First, the Senate's rules governing consideration of budget 
resolutions are overly burdensome and discourage passage of this 
important planning document. We can fix this by reforming what we call 
the vote-arama, the disgraceful ritual that has turned into a string of 
meaningless gotcha votes. The Senate should bring order to this chaotic 
process by establishing filing deadlines and limits on the number of 
amendments that can be offered.
  Second, the Senate should be required to devote floor time to 
consideration of annual appropriations measures--the annual spending 
measures. In Wyoming, the State legislature encourages full 
consideration of their spending bills by holding a budget session--that 
is, a session of the regular legislature--and it requires a two-thirds 
vote to consider any nonbudget legislation. We should have similar 
rules in the Senate to make sure we get our work done.
  Third, budget points of order should be meaningful. Today, they are 
routinely ignored or waived by Members of this body. The Senate should 
tie the waiver vote threshold to the size of the budget violation. De 
minimis violations--that would be under half a million dollars, 
probably--should be automatically waived, while large violations should 
be subject to up to a two-thirds vote threshold. It has to be a little 
more difficult for us to violate what we set out to do.
  Fourth, Congress needs to rethink the way it allocates Federal 
resources. Our fragmented budget process makes it nearly impossible to 
know how much of the government's resources are devoted to a particular 
policy goal. There is a different budget for the Budget Committee, a 
different one for the spending committees which are the appropriators, 
and a different one for the White House. I think it is intentional, so 
that we can't follow what it is. Our fragmented budget process makes it 
impossible to know how much of the government's resources are devoted 
to a particular policy goal. We should establish subcommittees within 
the Budget Committee to review entire portfolios of government spending 
and tax policy to ensure the programs and funding are actually 
accomplishing certain policy objectives. This would help identify both 
effective and ineffective programs, reducing waste, and focusing on 
results.
  We should also consider moving to a 2-year funding cycle. Funding 
uncertainty creates wasteful spending, disrupts government operations 
and planning, and reduces productive investment and hiring in the 
private sector. A biennial process would lock in 2 years of spending in 
law, providing Federal agencies, businesses, and the American people 
with certainty and predictability. That is why this commonsense 
solution has been supported by Presidents, legislators, and good-
governance think tanks from both parties for decades.
  Once the Senate passes legislation to improve our internal budget 
procedures, we should move on to the more fundamental problems of the 
current budget process; that is, the antiquated accounting rules and 
our growing debt burden. The private sector applies modern advances in 
economics, accounting, and finance to accurately reflect a business's 
financial condition and the potential impact of new policies, but the 
Federal Government's budget rules haven't undergone comprehensive 
reviews since 1967. That was 50 years ago. This issue may seem dry and 
boring, but as an accountant, I can tell you that it is extremely 
important and exciting. Antiquated accounting techniques mislead 
Congress and the public, and they misstate the true cost of government 
activities. Updating these budget rules will provide Congress with the 
honest, accurate information necessary to allocate taxpayer dollars 
effectively and efficiently.
  Finally, Congress should get serious about addressing America's long-
term debt crisis, which today totals more than $19 trillion and is 
expected to grow over $29 trillion by 2026--and that is just based on 
this 70 percent on automatic pilot. We need long-term, enforceable 
fiscal targets with guideposts along the way that ensure revenues and 
spending are moving in the right direction.
  Fiscal targets alone will not fix the Federal budget. Congress will 
need to enact substantial policy reforms if it wants to get our 
Nation's debt under control. Former Budget Chairmen Judd Gregg and Kent 
Conrad--one Republican, one Democrat--recommended establishing a 
bipartisan commission to submit a legislative proposal that would 
achieve long-term revenue, spending, and debt targets. Congress would 
then be required to consider and vote on the commission's 
recommendations without amendment. This is a creative, bipartisan 
approach to addressing politically difficult decisions that must be 
made to ensure this country's future prosperity.
  The Budget Committee has been working diligently on these reforms and 
stands ready to offer bipartisan legislation should the Senate choose 
to fix our broken budget process. The time to act is now. We are 
currently spending over $230 billion in interest on our debt every 
year, even with historically low interest rates that I talked about. 
The Congressional Budget Office tells us that every one percentage 
point our interest rates rise will increase America's overspending by 
$1.6 trillion over the next 10 years, or about $160 billion a year. 
That is a 1-percent rise in the interest rate--$230 billion--up another 
$160 billion, up another $160 billion. Interest on the debt will soon 
put America out of the business of protecting its citizens from foreign 
threats, educating our youth, and building national infrastructure like 
highways and roads.
  These bipartisan reforms wouldn't solve all of our budget problems, 
but they are a promising first step toward unsticking the budget 
gridlock that has gripped Washington in recent years. This would begin 
to put our Nation on not just another path but a better path.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following article, 
which appears in the Washington Times today, be printed in the Record: 
``Government not close to paying for promises, CBO says.'' The subtitle 
is ``Tax increases, cuts needed to return to normal debt load,'' by 
Stephen Dinan.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S5030]]

  


               [From the Washington Times, July 13, 2016]

 Government not Close To Paying for Promises, CBO Says: Tax Increases, 
               Cuts Needed To Return to Normal Debt Load

                           (By Stephen Dinan)

       The economy simply cannot grow fast enough to cover the 
     federal government's generous promises to Americans, the 
     Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, laying out grim 
     options of massive tax increases or withering cuts to 
     spending that loom ahead.
       After a few years of post-recession relief, deficits are 
     roaring back, the CBO said, sounding a call to action for a 
     Congress and White House that have instead been arguing over 
     how much to increase spending.
       But with health care costs rising, and an aging population 
     already promised very generous Social Security and Medicare 
     benefits, the government cannot come close to paying for its 
     current promises, the CBO said.
       ``Revenues are projected to increase, but much more slowly 
     than spending, leading to larger budget deficits and rising 
     debt,'' the analysts said in their long-term budget outlook.
       The picture is substantially worse than just a year ago, 
     when the CBO said debt held by the public would reach 107 
     percent of gross domestic product by 2040. Now, the CBO says, 
     that figure will be 122 percent--a 15-point turn for the 
     worse.
       Analysts said Congress keeps cutting taxes and boosting 
     spending, at a time when the budget hole calls for the exact 
     opposite approach.
       To get back to normal--which means a debt rate of about 40 
     percent of the economy--the government would have to cut $560 
     billion out of next year's budget, and growing every year 
     thereafter. Even to maintain the current level of already 
     excessive debt, which is 75 percent of the economy, would 
     require cuts of $330 billion in 2017.
       ``The longer lawmakers waited to act, the larger the 
     necessary policy changes would become,'' the CBO said.
       Budget watchdog groups demanded Hillary Clinton and Donald 
     Trump, the presumptive presidential nominees for Democrats 
     and the GOP, begin to talk about the massive fiscal problems 
     looming ahead.
       ``The presidential candidates should step up and address 
     our dangerous long-term debt trajectory with constructive 
     solutions and real leadership, not continuing to duck these 
     challenges as they have so far,'' said Maya MacGuineas, head 
     of Fix the Debt.
       Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord 
     Coalition, said the presidential hopefuls need to take the 
     issue to voters so the public gets invested in the debate, 
     and so the elections produce a mandate for the kinds of 
     solutions needed to fix things.
       The deficit was a dominant issue in 2010, as President 
     Obama's health law, the Wall Street bailout and the stimulus 
     package were all making a major dent in the government's 
     finances. Deficits soared beyond the $1 trillion mark for the 
     first time in history.
       The deficit has dropped dramatically over the last few 
     years as spending limits, imposed by Congress, have kicked 
     in, and as some of the post-recession tax breaks have 
     expired.
       But the CBO said things are about to get worse.
       Revenue will remain low--at between 18 and 19 percent of 
     GDP, which is about the average of the last 40 years. But 
     spending will explode, rising from 21 percent today to more 
     than 27 percent by 2040.
       That means that 30 years from now, the government will 
     regularly run deficits totaling $5 trillion a year--more than 
     the size of the entire federal budget right now.
       Social Security, which eats up 4.9 percent of GDP today, 
     will average 6.3 percent in 25 years. Medicare, which stands 
     at 3.8 percent today, will balloon to 6.6 percent surpassing 
     Social Security to become the biggest entitlement program.
       Meanwhile discretionary spending--the nuts and bolts 
     government operations such as education, defense and homeland 
     security--will drop to just 5.2 percent of GDP.

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, there is another article that the Washington 
Times did called ``Budget chairman to propose bipartisan overhaul of 
congressional budget process.'' It has bipartisan quotes from members 
of the committee. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Times, July 12, 2016]

Budget Chairman To Propose Bipartisan Overhaul of Congressional Budget 
                                Process

                          (By Tom Howell, Jr.)

       Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi on Wednesday 
     will propose the first bipartisan overhaul of Congress' 
     budget process in four decades, saying lawmakers should 
     outline two years of spending at a time and then stick to 
     their plans.
       The Wyoming Republican hopes to put an end to the last-
     minute deadline showdowns that have plagued Capitol Hill over 
     the last six years by forcing the Senate to debate spending 
     bills soon after the annual budget is finished.
       ``Instead of a functioning appropriations process, Congress 
     has resorted to massive omnibus appropriations bills and 
     continuing resolutions that carry over spending from the 
     previous year,'' he says in a summary of his plan obtained by 
     The Washington Times.
       He said it needs to be easier to write the budget and 
     harder to break it once it's finished. And he said Congress 
     should be forced to spend more time working on the spending 
     bills to carry out the budget, as a way of making the 
     document matter.
       Under current rules, Congress is supposed to complete a 
     budget by April 15 each year, and the spending committees 
     then use that broad blueprint to write 12 appropriations 
     bills doling out the money by Sept. 30.
       In reality, Congress never meets either deadline.
       Lawmakers instead regularly pass short-term stopgap bills 
     to keep the government open, limping along until they can 
     agree on massive year-end spending packages that please 
     neither side. Over the last 40 years, Congress approved some 
     173 stopgap bills.
       Other times Congress has failed altogether, sending the 
     government into partial shutdowns.
       Mr. Enzi believes changing the process can produce better 
     results, and will formally outline his ideas in a speech 
     early Wednesday on the Senate floor.
       In his outline, he says the government is already operating 
     on two-year budgets after massive debt agreements in 2011, 
     2013 and 2015. But he'd make it even easier to write a budget 
     by limiting the number of amendments that can be considered 
     on the Senate floor.
       It's also relatively easy to break the budget caps, with a 
     60-vote threshold. Mr. Enzi says small breaches should be 
     easy, but the bigger the spending, the tougher it should be.
       Really big budget breaches should require a two-thirds 
     vote, he says--the equivalent of overturning a presidential 
     veto.
       Also, Mr. Enzi says the Senate should focus on the regular 
     appropriations bills from the moment the budget resolution is 
     adopted until Congress breaks for its August recess.
       Any attempt to consider a non-appropriations measure during 
     that period would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
       Mr. Enzi also wants a new budget commission to update 
     government accounting practices.
       For instance, the commission could explore whether 
     ``dynamic scoring,'' in which the economic impact of federal 
     policies is taken into account by congressional scorekeepers, 
     should be used to enforce budget agreements.
       Committee aides expect Democrats to support rules that 
     would limit the number of floor amendments allowed to 
     budgets, though other aspects of the plan might be a tougher 
     sell, for instance Democrats have balked at Republican 
     demands to use dynamic scoring to count the economic ripple 
     effect of tax cuts.
       Sen. Angus King, Maine independent who caucuses with 
     Democrats, said he's already on board with Mr. Enzi's plan to 
     budget for two years instead of just one.
       ``It gives you more time for oversight, and it's ridiculous 
     to do a one-year budget on an enterprise this big,'' he said.

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President at 1:45 p.m. today, we are going to vote on 
the FAA bill. It is coming back, in essence, as a conference report, 
although it was negotiated directly with the House. So we will take up 
the House message.
  I thank Senator Thune, the chairman of the committee, because the two 
of us, of course, get along, and we have worked together to achieve an 
agreement with our counterparts in the House. So I thank Senator Thune. 
There were parts of this bill that he basically said for me to work 
them out with the Republican chairman in the House, and the work 
product is the proof in the pudding that we are going to take up today.
  This is a little more than a 14-month extension, but don't let that 
fool you because it is going to put into permanent law bolstering 
security at our airports in order to help better protect us. Of course, 
in these times, the safety of our traveling public is a top priority. 
In fact, it contains some of the most significant aviation security 
reforms that Congress has ever considered, and we have considered, as 
the Presiding Officer can remember, a lot since September 11, 2001. It 
also contains a number of consumer protection and drone safety 
provisions. So let me just enumerate a couple of those.
  To address the insider threat posed by terrorists, we increase the 
vetting requirements and random physical screenings of airport 
employees. What we found was, especially with the Atlanta airport 
situation 2 years ago, that they were not really checking their airport 
employees. There was a gunrunning scheme over a 3-month period in which 
an Atlanta airport employee would bring in guns. He wasn't

[[Page S5031]]

checked, he wasn't screened, and they didn't know what was in his 
backpack. Then he would go into the sterile TSA area where passengers 
are, into the men's room, and he would trade his backpack to a 
passenger that had already come through TSA screening. For 3 months 
they carried on this scheme of running guns from Atlanta to New York. 
Thank goodness, they weren't terrorists. They were criminals. But we 
can imagine that something like 150 guns were transported over that 3-
month period. Well, that is what we addressed in this FAA bill. We have 
increased the screening required at the airports, even though that is 
their responsibility. The most effective thing for TSA in screening 
anybody or baggage is the nose of a dog. We have doubled VIPR dog 
teams, and that is a substantive change.
  What about the international flights? We are always concerned about 
the point of last departure in an international designation coming into 
the United States. Have they been sufficiently checked, since we in 
effect are relying on the host government of that airport for a U.S.-
inbound flight? This will authorize TSA to donate unneeded security 
equipment to foreign airports with service to the United States. We are 
calling for increased cooperation between us and partner nations on 
routes flown by Americans. We are now in this bill requiring a new 
assessment of foreign cargo security programs.
  We also are setting up new screening systems and security checkpoint 
configurations to try to expedite passengers getting through. But at 
the same time, recognizing what happened in the terrorist attacks in 
Belgium and Istanbul makes it clear that we have to reduce the 
vulnerability of all those passengers amassing as a soft target before 
they ever go through the TSA checkpoint. That is what they did in 
Istanbul and in Belgium. So we put stuff to address that in this bill.
  Now, as to cyber security, we have heard a lot about it. Certainly, 
the cyber security risk for the FAA is a definite one, and we have done 
stuff in this bill to reduce the cyber security risk to the national 
airspace system and civil aviation. That includes reducing the 
vulnerability of the in-flight entertainment systems. We have all seen 
that video where someone with a laptop can take over a car through the 
in-car entertainment systems. We are concerned about that with regard 
to airlines, airplanes as well. This legislation supports the FAA 
efforts to develop a threat model to strengthen against that cyber 
security threat.

  What about consumers? This is substantive law that will last far 
beyond the extension of this bill that extends the FAA authorization 
through September 30 of next year. Don't you get irritated when you pay 
a baggage fee? Say you pay 50 bucks for an extra bag or a heavy bag and 
all of a sudden it is lost or significantly delayed? In this bill, 
those baggage fees are going to be returned.
  We are also going to require the airlines to have policies that are 
family-friendly. What about the child who desperately needs to sit next 
to a parent? Save for the goodness of the passengers--and the 
passengers usually respond because they are good people and realize 
that a child ought to sit close to a parent. We have enshrined that in 
this bill, and that will become a permanent law.
  For air travel with people with disabilities, we call for a review of 
the training and practices by airports and airlines and require the 
Department of Transportation to accelerate the rulemaking.
  Finally, I want to talk about the potential--and it is an accident 
waiting to happen--of an unmanned aerial vehicle--in other words, a 
drone--colliding with an airliner. We had a report a few months ago 
about an inbound American Airlines flight into Miami. They sighted a 
drone off the left wing. It is absolutely essential that we keep drones 
out of the airspace for takeoffs and landings in a busy airfield, so we 
have set up in the legislation a pilot program to develop and test 
technologies to intercept that drone or to shut it down when it is near 
an airport in order that we don't have what we know would be a 
catastrophic crash. It requires the FAA to work with NASA to test and 
develop a drone traffic management system.
  I thank all of our Senate colleagues. I thank the ranking member and 
the chairman in the House, as we negotiated these provisions in this 
bill. That is what we are going to vote on at 1:45 p.m. I commend the 
FAA bill, and I hope the Senate considers it favorably.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Republican whip.
  (The remarks of Mr. Cornyn pertaining to the introduction of S. 3184 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, as we take up extension of the FAA 
reauthorization this week, I want to voice my frustration that an 
extension of the section 48 energy investment tax credit was not 
included. More importantly, I want to make clear my continued 
commitment to securing the credit's extension before the end of the 
year. This is an issue of immediate urgency.
  The tax package agreed to at the end of last year extended the 
section 48 energy investment tax credit for 5 years, beginning on 
January 1, 2017, phased down to 26 percent in 2020 and 22 percent in 
2021. However, through a drafting error, some technologies in section 
48 were left out of that long-term extension. As a result, those 
technologies--including fuel cells, geothermal, hydropower, and 
biomass, among others--are set to expire at the end of this year.
  Picking winners and losers was not our intention. The majority leader 
agreed with that sentiment and made a commitment to address the 
discrepancy early this year. Unfortunately, we have yet to place it on 
a moving legislative vehicle. The lack of certainty for these 
technologies is creating market distortions that will drive capital out 
of these technologies and toward those with longer-term incentives.
  I think it is important that we support an all-of-the-above energy 
strategy and ensuring new clean energy technologies have a seat at the 
table is a key component. Therefore, although I had hoped to see us put 
the section 48 fix on the FAA extension, I remain committed to securing 
this change before the end of the year. This is a noncontroversial, 
already-agreed to modification and it should be processed 
expeditiously.
  (At the request of Mr. Lankford, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)
 Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I wish to support the FAA 
Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016. The FAA extension provides 
the aviation community with necessary stability over the next year and 
sets into motion important reforms to improve safety and security for 
air travelers. This legislation includes provisions that support the 
general aviation community, as well as job creators in Oklahoma. First, 
this bill includes third class medical reform, the foundation to my 
Pilot's Bill of Rights 2, which will cut burdensome red tape and 
encourage pilots to disclose and treat medical conditions that could 
impact their ability to fly. It also includes a provision allowing 
critical infrastructure operators to use drones to support their needs 
for meeting existing regulations or in response to natural disasters. 
This provision will make way for innovative technology to be used with 
large-scale infrastructure, such as bridges or pipelines, so that 
businesses can safely and efficiently provide services to their 
consumers.
  I am particularly pleased to note that this bill includes the third 
class medical reforms from my bipartisan Pilot's Bill of Rights 2, 
which has passed the Senate three times since last December. This 
legislation is strongly supported by the entire general aviation 
community, a number of pilot unions, including the Allied Pilots 
Association representing the pilots of American Airlines, the Southwest 
Airlines Pilots' Association, and the NetJets Association of Shared 
Aircraft Pilots, as well as the National Association of State Aviation 
Officials. In particular, I want to highlight the Aircraft Owners and 
Pilots Association, AOPA, and the Experimental Aircraft Association, 
EAA, for their leadership and support from the beginning and all their 
work to educate my colleagues in Congress on issues that affect pilots. 
I am very grateful for the strong and consistent voice of AOPA and EAA 
members who have shared why third class medical reform is necessary.

[[Page S5032]]

  FAA's current medical certification process is bureaucratic, 
burdensome, and discourages pilots from disclosing and treating medical 
conditions that could impact their ability to fly. This legislation 
reforms the medical certification process for general aviation pilots 
in a way that will increase pilots' knowledge of risk while demanding 
treatment of identified conditions. The reforms expand the existing 
exemption for light sport pilots to include more qualified, trained 
pilots, as long as they complete three requirements. First, pilots must 
complete an online medical education course; second, pilots must 
maintain verification that they have been to a doctor at least once 
every 4 years and certify that they are receiving the care they need as 
directed by their physician to treat any medical condition that 
warrants treatment; and third, pilots must complete one comprehensive 
medical review by the FAA.
  The FAA extension legislation also includes a provision that would 
allow critical infrastructure owners and operators to use unmanned 
aircraft systems to comply with mandated regulations and to perform 
emergency response and preparation activities.
  This amendment would apply to energy infrastructure, such as oil and 
gas and renewable electric energy, it would apply to power utilities 
and telecommunications networks, and it would apply to roads and 
bridges and water supply system operators. Today critical 
infrastructure owners and operators are required to comply with 
significant requirements to monitor facilities and assets, which can 
stretch thousands of miles, and traverse rural and hard to access 
areas. Existing Federal safety regulations require periodic patrolling 
of the rights of way of critical infrastructure such as pipelines or 
transmission lines to check for encroachment, unauthorized excavation, 
evidence of leaks, or any other conditions that might jeopardize the 
safety of the pipeline or transmission line. Currently, Federal 
regulations allow periodic patrols to be conducted on foot, in 
vehicles, or with manned aircraft.
  This language would ensure that critical infrastructure owners and 
operators, sponsors or associations who sponsor critical 
infrastructure, or their agents are able to apply to the Federal 
Aviation Administration to use unmanned aircraft as well.
  This is of particular importance because unmanned aircraft can be 
quickly deployed to assess dangerous situations as part of a 
coordinated response to provide immediate feedback and situational 
awareness and direct resources to locations of highest danger. The use 
of unmanned aircraft would provide consistent and long-term on-scene 
information gathering capability in spite of weather or other incident 
dangers harmful to responding personnel, reduce the threat to response 
personnel in emergency situations. This amendment is supported by a 
wide array of stakeholders including the Small UAV Coalition, the 
National Rural Electric Cooperatives, the American Public Power 
Association, Edison Electric Institute, CTIA--the Wireless Association, 
the American Gas Association, the American Public Gas Association, the 
Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, the American Petroleum 
Institute, the Association of Oil Pipelines, the American Fuels and 
Petrochemical Manufacturers, 3D Robotics, and the American Wind Energy 
Association. Congress should provide direction to FAA to set up a 
process for critical infrastructure operators to be able to safety 
operate unmanned aerial vehicles where there is clear and articulable 
need, and the provision included in this bill accomplishes that goal.
  I strongly support this legislation, and I look forward to ensuring 
the swift implementation of these provisions by the Federal Aviation 
Administration in the coming months.


               Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Bill

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on another matter, earlier today this 
Chamber voted to move the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act 
conference report forward. This legislation has been the work of 
bipartisanship from the beginning, and it sailed through the Senate 
earlier this year.
  Now, this bicameral agreement authorizes even more resources to 
combat the epidemic of heroin and prescription painkiller abuse that is 
tearing families apart across the country. Over the last few years, we 
have heard the stories and we have seen a dangerous trend of heroin and 
prescription drug abuse. In my State alone, it is estimated that these 
deaths have increased by as much as 80 percent in recent years. There 
is no doubt this is a serious issue. This is not just a bipartisan 
issue; this is a nonpartisan issue. Now is our chance to get something 
done.
  I am grateful for the hard work and the leadership of the junior 
Senator from Ohio, Mr. Portman, who has shepherded this bill from the 
beginning to where we are today, along with Senator Ayotte from New 
Hampshire, Senator Blunt from Missouri, and Chairman Grassley of the 
Senate Judiciary Committee. I want to thank all of them for their role 
in getting this bill across the finish line. Now we need to complete 
our work and pass it so we can get it to the President's desk.


                           Zika Virus Funding

  Of course, there is a lot more we should be doing for the American 
people this week, but unfortunately, instead of advancing bills that 
would help prevent birth defects from the Zika virus and divert a 
public health crisis, our colleagues want to talk about climate change. 
I understand many of them feel this is a serious matter and a priority, 
but what they have been basically doing is beating up on a group of 
nonprofits and private citizens no one outside the beltway has even 
heard of, and for what? For having the temerity to exercise their 
rights under the Constitution, their rights to free speech and free 
expression. Heaven forbid someone should utter words that somebody 
across the aisle might disagree with. The answer, as we know, to speech 
you disagree with is more speech, not less speech. It should not be 
used to try to squash, intimidate, coerce the people you disagree with. 
That is not the America I know, and that is not what the Constitution 
provides for.
  I hope our colleagues will get their priorities straight. This is 
about preventing devastating birth defects in children infected with 
the Zika virus. We can have a discussion about climate change--
hopefully without the attempt to intimidate and attack people who 
express opinions our colleagues don't agree with--but I suggest that 
our priorities ought to be a little bit different.
  It is not just that this is a conscience effort to ignore the most 
pressing issues facing our country, such as fighting the Zika virus or 
funding our troops; they don't even want to have an honest conversation 
about the policies they are peddling because they are not interested in 
a debate, they want to stamp out contrary views.
  For all their fanfare about climate change, this is not the most 
urgent thing we need to do this week. They don't talk about how the 
policies are advocating what actually stifled free speech and hurt the 
American economy and cut jobs. We have had debates and votes in this 
body about some of these sweeping proposals to deal with the problem 
that may or may not actually come to pass. There have been other 
challenges we faced in this country that have been overcome due to the 
inventiveness, innovation, and genius of the American people in coming 
up with solutions.
  I hope our colleagues who have latched on to this as a way to divert 
attention from the imminent threat of the Zika virus and the need to 
fund our troops will come back into a zone--not a logic-free zone--
where we can talk about these issues. And instead of trying to score 
political points with outside groups who are happy to raise money off 
of this issue, we need to get back to reality and back to the work at 
hand.
  Quite frankly, it is hard to believe this is where we are, with our 
Democratic friends arguing against bills that would help prevent birth 
defects in our children and support our troops. Instead, they want to 
grandstand on climate change. I hope they get a reality check soon and 
stop quibbling over bicameral, bipartisan pieces of legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.


               Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Bill

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I wish to address two issues which the 
Senate Finance Committee has spent a considerable amount of time on, 
and both of

[[Page S5033]]

them are examples of how the Senate is leaving important work undone on 
its way out the door. I am going to begin by discussing the opioid 
bill.
  If ever there were an issue that ought to be unifying the Congress 
and bringing Democrats and Republicans together to surmount an 
important challenge, it ought to be opioid addiction in America. This 
is a crisis indiscriminate of geography and politics. The reality is 
that opioid addiction is ripping through our communities like wildfire. 
A recent editorial in one of my home State newspapers captured the 
extreme urgency of the opioid struggle, the addiction, with this 
statement: ``Opioids are winning.''
  After months of work, the Senate and House have come up with an 
opioid bill. I can give my assessment in a sentence: It is a half-
measure. The job is far from complete, and certainly nobody ought to be 
taking victory laps. The reality is that this opioid bill leaves many 
opportunities to fight and successfully win the battle against opioid 
addiction on the negotiating table.
  A landmark study dealing with opioids came out a few months ago and 
found that 80 percent of those who were addicted to painkillers or 
heroin weren't getting treatment.
  I want everybody to understand that under this bill, those waiting 
lines are not going to get much shorter. The thousands of babies born 
each year with an addiction to narcotics--this bill won't be enough to 
bring that number down to zero, where everybody knows it should be. And 
there is a moral imperative to actually get it to zero. That is why 
there are headlines stating that opioids are winning the war.
  The package before the Senate certainly has the kernels of a 
meaningful game plan, but, in my view, there is just not enough there. 
There are programs being established that could be a big help to those 
who are struggling to get their lives back on track, but there aren't 
the tools to deliver on that promise.
  Senators should know that doing only half the job now means that 
Members are going to be leading with their chins when the 
appropriations process returns later this year. The reason I say that 
is there are some programs that are going to be bumping up against the 
uncertainty of the appropriations process.
  There is a program for pregnant women and new mothers suffering from 
an opioid-use disorder.
  There is a program to help States take important strides when it 
comes to monitoring prescription drugs.
  There is better tracking within the VA.
  There is a plan to strengthen the network of support in American 
communities that is best equipped to reach out to those who need 
support in fighting addiction, which includes physicians, employers, 
the criminal justice system, and more.
  The bill green-lights the National Institutes of Health putting new 
energy into the development of safe, nonaddictive, effective, and 
affordable drugs and treatments for chronic pain.
  The bill establishes a task force and grants for States to construct 
what I believe could be a fresh approach to pain management and 
opioids, including education programs, treatment, recovery efforts, 
prescription monitoring, and strategies to prevent overdose.
  Getting those proposals off the ground is a first step, but with the 
Senate on its way out the door, it seems to me that you also have to do 
more than just leave the strategy for actually winning against opioid 
addiction to the uncertainty of the appropriations process in the fall.
  There are other questions about this bill. I am very concerned about 
the provision that gives $75 million in special kickbacks to the 
manufacturers of opioids that are considered under the bill ``abuse 
deterrents.'' I believe it is wrong for the bill, which only does half 
the job for Americans struggling with addiction, to then turn around 
and give an unjustified windfall to big drug companies. I offered an 
amendment to get rid of the windfall, and it was very simple. I said: 
Let's give that money to pregnant women who are enrolled in Medicaid, 
women of limited means who are struggling to fight addiction. But the 
choice was made to give the windfall to the drug companies rather than 
to help those vulnerable women who are trying to get their lives back 
on track. We shouldn't be giving funding to programs that really help 
women and others who are trying to overcome addiction and then turn 
around and give a $75 million windfall to drug companies. That, in my 
view, is an imbalance that does not pass the smell test.
  The bottom line on the opioid legislation is that there is an awful 
lot of heavy lifting to do before anybody ought to think about taking a 
victory lap. My State--and it pains me to say this--is the fourth worst 
State in the country when it comes to opioid abuse. I hear from 
Oregonians who have gone from pills, to heroin, to a tragic ending. I 
hear accounts that nobody could have ever dreamed of.
  I was blessed to go to school on a basketball scholarship. Nobody 
heard about basketball players who had an injury getting hooked on 
opioids and having tragic, premature endings and opportunities choked 
off. We didn't hear those stories then, but we hear them now.
  I have heard from doctors and pharmacists about the dangers drugs 
pose and the difficulty of treating pain safely. I hear from community 
leaders who are trying fresh approaches to reach out to young people. 
My sense is that every single Member of the Senate is hearing these 
kinds of stories.
  I want it understood that the opioid addiction crisis is going to 
keep raging unabated. Lives are going to continue to be lost and 
families are going to continue to be torn apart until the Senate 
finishes the rest of the job, and the rest of the job is still ahead of 
us.


                      Nomination of Mary Wakefield

  Mr. President, I have unfinished business that needs to be addressed, 
and that is the yearlong obstruction in front of the Senate Finance 
Committee on a supremely qualified nominee, Dr. Mary Wakefield, who is 
the President's choice to be the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human 
Services. Her nomination has been sitting in purgatory longer than any 
other such choice in history, and it is for reasons that have 
absolutely nothing to do with her qualifications.
  I am going to talk about what is causing the holdup, but I want to 
spend a little bit of time talking about Dr. Wakefield and the 
important role she has been nominated to fill. She is up for the No. 2 
spot at Health and Human Services, which would make her the chief 
operating officer of a Department that is taking on some of our most 
important health challenges, including opioid addiction. They manage 
the most important health programs in the country. This Department is 
on the frontlines in the battle against Zika. They run the Centers for 
Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, the National 
Institutes of Health, child welfare programs, family support programs, 
and it goes on and on.
  I felt from the outset that she was the right person for this job. 
She is somebody who has seen the American health care system from all 
sides. She comes from rural America. She hails from North Dakota and 
sought out more opportunities to help individuals by working in policy 
and managing programs. She was a nurse, and she said: I want to do 
more, and I am going to be able to do it by learning more about these 
health policies. So she earned a master's degree, a Ph.D., and then she 
served as a legislative assistant and chief of staff in the Senate. She 
has proven herself most able as the head of the Health Resources and 
Services Administration. This is almost a textbook case of somebody 
qualified to do this job.

  When the Finance Committee met in February to discuss her nomination, 
she was winning plaudits from both sides of the aisle. My friend, 
Chairman Hatch, said Dr. Wakefield has an ``impressive background and a 
reputation for being a problem solver.'' Those are not my words. They 
are the words of Chairman Hatch.
  Senator Hoeven, who introduced Dr. Wakefield at that hearing, said, 
``She is a dedicated public servant and a hard-working health care 
advocate.''
  And Senator Hoeven, whom we all respect, like Senator Hatch, made the 
important point that Dr. Wakefield is an advocate especially for rural 
America. She believes Americans deserve access to high-quality health 
care, regardless of their ZIP Code, and she has certainly walked the 
walk as a nurse and as a practitioner.

[[Page S5034]]

  Senator Hoeven encouraged the Finance Committee to support Dr. 
Wakefield's nomination and ``send her to the full Senate for 
confirmation.''
  Unfortunately, this process of moving this highly qualified nominee 
has ground to a halt. There have been kind of two stages of this 
process. First, in February, Senator Grassley indicated he would put a 
hold on the nomination on the ground that he and other Republican 
Senators had not received adequate responses to the questions they had 
raised about Planned Parenthood. Now, these questions had absolutely 
nothing to do with what Dr. Wakefield had been involved in. Senator 
Grassley's questions were answered months ago, but as soon as that was 
accomplished, there was another objection.
  In March, the Republican members of the Finance Committee sent a 
letter to the inspector general raising questions about a complaint 
against the State of California regarding what is the so-called Weldon 
amendment. The amendment prohibits recipients of appropriated funds 
from discriminating against health care providers who do not cover 
abortion services. We were told the Wakefield nomination could not be 
considered until those issues with respect to California and the Weldon 
amendment were resolved.
  Once again, we are seeing issues raised that have absolutely nothing 
to do with Dr. Wakefield, a nurse, someone who hails from rural 
America, who Republican Senators say is eminently qualified, to be held 
up for matters that had nothing to do with her nomination. She wasn't 
the subject of the investigation. She didn't work in California. There 
has been no allegation she has been involved in any way in the matters 
being investigated.
  Several weeks ago, the Office of Civil Rights concluded their 
investigation of California and the Weldon amendment. It concluded the 
Weldon amendment had not been violated, really not even implicated, 
because none of the parties bringing the complaint were even covered by 
the amendment. So as a matter of law, there was no violation.
  Now, one would normally think that would finally clear the decks; no 
issues left related to Dr. Wakefield's nomination. Even the issues 
unrelated to her nomination had been resolved. So one would think we 
would be ready to go, ready to forward the nomination. That has not 
been the case. My understanding is, on the other side of the aisle, 
Republican members of the Finance Committee are still unwilling to 
favorably report the nomination.
  So a highly qualified nominee is being needlessly blocked for reasons 
that--and I have spent a lot of time digging into this--are completely 
unrelated to her qualifications and the position she has been nominated 
to.
  It just seems to me the people we represent deserve more when it 
comes to the consideration of vital nominees--vital nominees like Dr. 
Wakefield--and legislation that ought to really shorten those waiting 
lines for opioid treatment and respond fully to the challenge of opioid 
addiction. The Congress ought to be doing its job. It ought to be doing 
more than making political points and passing half measures.
  I will close by way of saying that I think as much as any Member of 
this body, I have made a commitment to working in a bipartisan way. It 
is what I want to be the hallmark of my time in public service. I will 
just close by way of saying that I think both fighting opioid addiction 
and making sure that qualified people who have been recommended by 
senior Republicans can actually be considered here in both instances. 
The Congress and the Senate owe more to the American people.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.


               The Appropriations Process and Pell Grants

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I was interested to hear my good friend 
talk about the uncertainty of the appropriations process. Frankly, I 
think we could debate no issue that would change the Congress more 
totally than the issue of getting back to the certainty of the 
appropriations process.
  For 200 years, the principal work of the Congress--the House and the 
Senate--was to set our national priorities based on how we spend our 
national trust of the money given to this government by the people who 
pay taxes, the revenue of the government. We have gotten out of the 
habit of doing that. Frankly, one of the reasons we have an authorizing 
process--and have always had that--and an appropriating process is 
because that gave the Congress the annual ability to look at those 
programs, see how they were working, see if they were still working, 
and gave the Congress the ability to reach out to a program and have 
that program answer every question because there was an annual review 
of how we spent the money. If there is an incredible indictment over 
the last 7 years, it is that the Senate has stopped doing that work.
  The Republican-led Appropriations Committees over the last 2 years 
have had all the bills ready for the first time in a long time--ready 
to do the work and ready to talk about the priorities of the country 
and, maybe more importantly, ready for the 30 people who serve on the 
Appropriations Committee to not be the only people who get to offer 
amendments, to not be the only people who ask and answer questions, and 
to not be the only people who get a say in this process. That is why 
these bills need to be on the floor.
  What a tragedy this week and last week that the Defense 
appropriations bill--the primary responsibility of the Federal 
Government to defend the country--that bill isn't even allowed to be 
debated by the minority because they say: We want to see what the final 
bill will say before we are ready to debate the Senate version. There 
is no government--bicameral, two legislative body chart in the world--
that shows how one group decides what the final bill looks like before 
the other body of the Congress is allowed to pass a bill. That is just 
not the way this works. There is a Senate bill, there is a House bill, 
and those two bills come together.
  The country, for good reasons, has forgotten the basic civics of how 
our democracy works because the Senate particularly has been such an 
obstacle to that democracy working for 7 years now. For 5 years, we 
were not able to amend the bills, and that was a reason not to go 
forward, and by the way it was a good reason not to go forward. Then, 
for 2 years, we didn't want to debate the bills because apparently we 
didn't know what they were going to say before they got to the 
President's desk. That is not how this process is supposed to work.
  Last month, for the first time in 7 years, the Senate Appropriations 
Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education passed a 
bipartisan bill. It came out of the full committee 29 to 1. That is a 
good vote, but that still means 70 of the Senators haven't gotten to 
weigh in on what that bill should look like. If that was the case, it 
could be that other Senators who are concerned about opioid abuse--
which I want to talk about in a minute--the Senators who are concerned 
about whether that is going to be funded would be less concerned if 
they knew we were back to the constitutional way of running the 
government.
  As chairman of the Labor and Health and Human Services Committee, I 
was pleased we were able to write that bipartisan bill. Certainly, 
Senator Murray, the leading Democrat, didn't get everything she wanted 
in this bill, and I didn't get everything I wanted in this bill, but we 
were willing to set priorities. One of the priorities I want to talk 
about for a few minutes, before we all go home and have a chance to 
talk about the good things that could happen in the country if we will 
just do our job--one of those priorities will be returning to year-
round Pell grants.
  Pell grants are the grants available to people who, because of their 
family income or their personal income, qualify for not a student loan 
but actually a student grant. Until 2008, we had several years where 
you could go to school, and you could go to school year-round, and 
still have access to those Pell grant funds.
  Recently, I was at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis. I was 
at Mineral Area College, I was at Ozarks Technical College, Missouri 
State University in Springfield, and I was at Three Rivers Community 
College in Poplar Bluff talking about what happens if people are able 
to stay in school once they get in school.
  One of the students I talked to at Harris-Stowe is Tierra Wilson, a 
21-

[[Page S5035]]

year-old senior who was about to graduate. She was going to school 
pretty much on her own resources, her own part-time job. She needed to 
get done as soon as she could so she decided to take summer classes, 
but since she didn't have the opportunity for a year-round Pell--she 
could only get the Pell grant for two semesters instead of the way it 
was until 2008--she could only get that money for two semesters so she 
had to borrow the $3,000 it took her to finish her degree sooner. The 
good news is, she is going to finish her degree. The bad news for her 
is, she has an additional $3,000 debt that she wouldn't have had.
  The newspaper the Joplin Globe recently shared a story about another 
student who also recently has gone to school on Pell grants, Andy 
Hamon. He is a senior. His mom and dad run a small business. According 
to that story, he has always depended on financial aid because his 
family didn't have the resources to pay tuition. He said it hasn't been 
easy. He said he had to take classes in the summer, and when he did 
take classes in the summer, he had to borrow or out-of-pocket come up 
with the $800 to $10,000 the Pell grant will not cover.
  When I was at Mineral Area Community College, the president of 
Mineral Area Community College, Dr. Steve Kurtz, said, when you talk 
about affordability and accessibility, you are right in the middle of 
this discussion on what happens if you have access to help year-round 
as opposed to just two semesters a year.
  Jean Merrill-Doss, who serves as the dean of student services at that 
college, says approximately 60 percent of their student body is 
dependent on Pell grants to attend school.
  As a college student, I went to school as quickly as I could. Nobody 
in my family had graduated from college before. I went three years, 
three summers. It took 124 credit hours to graduate with a bachelor's 
degree. I had 124 credit hours. I didn't have an extra hour. I couldn't 
pay for an extra hour, in my view, and I needed to get college behind 
me or I might not be the first person in my family to graduate from 
college.
  In fact, the first teaching job I took at Marshfield High School--my 
grandfather was the janitor. He had been the janitor, when I was 
growing up, at the school where I took my first job as a college 
graduate.
  Students like Tierra, students like Andy need to have the opportunity 
we can give them to go to school and finish school.
  Pell grants benefit about 7.5 million students annually. The maximum 
two-semester Pell grant will be $5,815 in the school year that begins 
next fall. The $5,815 pays for tuition, fees, books at every community 
college in Missouri, and we have a big community college system. So for 
people who have the most economic need, we already have free 2 years of 
college in our State, and in a couple of our universities you can still 
get all your tuition, all your books, all the fees paid for with a Pell 
grant.
  What is the advantage of being able to stay in school once you get 
started in school? The Presiding Officer and I are two of the three 
university presidents here in the Senate. So we have talked to many 
students who had to have financial aid and had to have help to go. If 
you are the first person in your family to graduate from college or you 
are going back to school--maybe you are taking a break, you didn't go 
to college, or college didn't work out--and you are an adult and 
totally responsible for all of your college expenses if you are going 
to go, staying in school makes a big difference. If you decide you 
can't go that summer semester because you can't afford the tuition and 
you get the full-time summer job, it is real easy for the full-time 
summer job to turn into this: Well, I will do this job one more 
semester, and I will get into school in January. In January it is easy 
to think: Well, I will go ahead and finish my job and save a little 
more money, and I will get back into school at the regular time next 
fall. Before you know it, life gets in the way, things happen, and you 
intend to continue to go to school, finish, and get your degree, but it 
somehow doesn't happen.
  Those students who want to continue their class work year-round 
should have access to the Pell grant help that you would have if you 
were a little more flexible and had a little more ability to take a 
part-time job in the summer, live at home with your mom and dad, and do 
whatever you are doing there and start back in the fall. Year-round 
Pell is not for everybody, but it is expected that an estimated 1 
million students of the 7.7 million students that get Pell would take 
advantage of year-round Pell, and that includes 20,000 Missouri 
students who would take advantage of year-round Pell. They would get an 
average of $1,650 each to take advantage of that other semester--
another semester to catch up, another semester to get ahead, or another 
semester to just graduate faster. This is something we need to do and 
should do.


                            Opioid Epidemic

  Mr. President, I want to speak for a couple of minutes about the 
other topic that was just discussed--opioids. Clearly, this is a 
problem. About 1,000 Missourians every year die from opioid overdoses. 
In St. Louis alone, deaths related to opioid abuse have increased three 
times since 2007. An estimated 5.9 million American adults have an 
opioid use disorder. This is truly a public health crisis in every 
corner of the nation, from our major cities to our rural communities. 
There is some evidence that rural communities even have a bigger 
problem with opioid abuse than in the city.
  I was visiting over the Fourth of July weekend with some St. Louis 
firefighters who were also in the first responder team, and it is clear 
that this is something where 10 or 15 times a day, and even more on 
weekends, they are responding to opioid overdoses. If you are in a fire 
department in America today that also has a first responder unit, you 
are three times more likely to go to an overdose than you are to go to 
a fire.
  The good news is there is treatment. Seventy-two percent of the 
Missourians who went through the State's opioid treatment program, 
having been tested, were found to be negative afterward with any random 
test. So there is a solution here. The problem is that only about 10 
percent of the people who have the problem get into the program to 
solve the problem.
  That is why yesterday the bill was passed that I co-sponsored that 
dealt with the idea of opioid abuse. This agreement expands access to 
evidence-based treatment and recovery services and focuses on proven 
strategies that strengthen people's ability not to get addicted and, if 
they are addicted, to figure out how to no longer be addicted.
  In this appropriation, we recommended a 93-percent increase in the 
money available. One of the issues that Senator Wyden was concerned 
about was whether there would be enough money. Between last year and 
this year, we increased the money by 542 percent. It takes an 
unbelievably effective government agency to deal with a more than 542-
percent increase. We are going to continue to watch the bill, to watch 
the need, to see and do everything possible to see that the money is 
available.
  The House has ideas here. We do too. First responders are not the 
people who need to be primarily focused on this job. They need to be 
there when they need to be there, but we have to do something that 
solves this problem.
  People need a place to go. That is why the Excellence in Mental 
Health Act will have at least 6 States, and as many as 24 States, on 
January 1, treating mental health like all other health, providing an 
important access point for mental health issues of all kinds and opioid 
issues that can only be dealt with in that context of overall health 
involving mental health.
  I hope we will begin to work more openly, more transparently, and 
more committed to solving problems than we are committed to just 
complaining about problems.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.

                          ____________________