[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 194 (Monday, December 10, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7379-S7382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order and pursuant to rule 
XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, 
which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Justin George Muzinich, of New York, to be Deputy 
     Secretary of the Treasury.
         Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, Jerry Moran, Lisa 
           Murkowski, John Barrasso, David Perdue, Ron Johnson, 
           Shelley Moore Capito, John Cornyn, Marco Rubio, Tom 
           Cotton, Steve Daines, Michael B. Enzi, Cindy Hyde-
           Smith, Lamar Alexander, John Kennedy, Deb Fischer.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Justin George Muzinich, of New York, to be Deputy 
Secretary of the Treasury, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. 
McCaskill) is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 55, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 256 Ex.]

                                YEAS--55

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kennedy
     King
     Kyl
     Lankford
     Lee
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--43

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cortez Masto
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Peters
     Reed
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     McCaskill
     Tillis
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 55, the nays are 43.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from New York.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 299

  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask 
unanimous consent that the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee be 
discharged from further consideration of H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy 
Vietnam Veterans Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and 
passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, reserving the right to object and to take 
a couple minutes to give the Members the facts they need to make a 
decision tonight, I want to say a couple things.
  I am chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. There are many 
Members in this Chamber who know their responsibility to that committee 
is greater than any other. I come down tonight to speak on an issue 
that has been bothering me and has been festering for years, but nobody 
has ever done anything about it. Nobody has ever done the hard work of 
saying this is what we need to do, and this is why we need to do it 
this way.
  Well, the House has finally done it this year, and we have done it.
  Granted, this is a UC motion and not a debate on the floor. It is 
because we finally addressed all the issues everybody said about the 
blue water bill that they didn't like, except that some people would 
like to say it differently.
  Some people want another study even though we have studied it enough 
to do it. Some people want to wait until the VA says they need to do 
this, that, or the other. Some people say the VA could call and will 
tell you the other. Somebody said we don't even have the right numbers 
of how many people this might affect. Nobody has the right number about 
how many people will get sick in the future from a disease we don't 
know exists until the time they contract it.
  What happened in this case is very simple. The Veterans' 
Administration, years ago, decided if someone contracted one of the 
cancers of which a contributing factor was napalm and Agent Orange, 
they qualified for benefits, except if they served on the blue water, 
which is not the rivers, and didn't serve on the ground, then they 
didn't. So in other words, we have ground troops who fought in Vietnam. 
We have river fighters in Vietnam who get the benefit. If you served on 
a Navy ship carrying napalm, but you never touched the ground and only 
stayed on the blue water, you are not eligible. So we have two classes 
of victims who are veterans of the United States of America who fought 
and risked their lives who have been trying for years to get an equal 
treatment with their other brothers.

[[Page S7380]]

  This was done for many. I am not going to go over the things I have 
heard because some of them are outrageous. Nonetheless, everybody 
looked for a way to try and get some of the benefit back once the VA 
had it taken over.
  What the Congress is about to do--and the House has now passed a bill 
unanimously this year that will benefit this motion. The Senate has had 
two hearings, and we have done a lot of work on it. I have done a lot 
of work on it because I knew how big the issue was. I talked to the 
people in the VA. I realize everybody in here can go find somebody who 
says they don't like it. There are people at the VA who don't like it, 
but let me tell you what I don't like: I don't like having two classes 
of beneficiaries for disease and health. I don't like not shooting 
straight with the same people who ought to qualify for the same thing. 
I really don't like putting off the decision 1 more year until we get 
one more study. This thing has been studied as long as it needs to be 
studied. We have the best information we possibly can get. I tried my 
best to give some of the Members the exact information they asked me 
for, but the CVA will not give it to me because they don't have it 
because it is predictive in the future, not present experience.
  So I would ask every Member, before they consider casting a ``no'' 
vote against this UC, to think about what you are doing. You are saying 
no to those who had a benefit taken away from them by the VA itself. 
You are putting off a decision we are going to have to make in the 
future. You are not allowing us to do what we really ought to do. I 
would ask each of you to search your heart, search your past, and think 
about the veterans in your State and cast a vote for doing the right 
thing for the right people at the right time and not object to the 
motion made by the Senator from New York.
  I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I appreciate 
my colleagues' work on this legislation. I am pretty sure I have never 
opposed a bill that Senator Isakson was involved in. If you are looking 
for thoroughness in legislation, he is the epitome of it, but on this 
bill, many of us have been recently made aware of the potential cost 
growth and budget-sharing and operational pressures that would happen 
at the VA. They are having a lot of problems anyway, but the VA's 
analysis shows that the cost could be nearly five times what Congress 
assumed it was when the House of Representatives passed it--and they 
did pass it by those strong numbers.
  A recent letter from the Congressional Budget Office estimated an 
increased cost from their first estimate of about $1.3 billion. So 
there is clearly more work to do just on figuring out the spending and 
the administration of this and the deficit impact this bill will have, 
while we still want to make sure the veterans who are having the 
problems get the solutions they need.
  There will be a report out in June that is going to maybe narrow down 
the risks. I am not that excited about any studies, but another concern 
I have heard from veterans is the pay-for. There will be an increase in 
the interest rate for housing for some veterans who are trying to buy a 
house. That isn't enough money to cover the renewed estimates of how 
much this is.
  I think the bill can be made more specific--which is really tough for 
Johnny because he has been working on it, and it will be specific--but 
we need to get some way to justify the numbers that range between 
63,000 people and 440,000 people. That is a pretty big gap on whom we 
let in. If they have a problem, and we need to take care of it, I think 
we need to spend a little bit more time doing it. I know that is 
difficult at the end of a session, but as a result I am going to 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, the House of Representatives has 
already passed this bill unanimously, 382 to 0. The bill is fully paid 
for, and it is long past time that we do the right thing. We have to 
right this wrong and help these veterans.
  The only thing standing in the way of this bill to help the Vietnam 
veterans is the U.S. Senate, and that is shameful. We have just days 
before the Congress is finished. Our blue water veterans are waiting 
for us, their families are waiting for us, and some of them are dying 
waiting for us.
  These patriotic Americans went to Vietnam. They risked their lives. 
They were exposed to the chemical, Agent Orange, which we now know is 
highly toxic. Some of them were exposed on the ground, some while 
patrolling the rivers, and some were exposed while stationed on ships 
off the Vietnamese coast. These are called our blue water Navy vets.
  Now, all these years later, Agent Orange has made many of them sick 
and they are severely ill. There have been four different health 
studies by the CDC about the detrimental effects of Agent Orange 
exposure, and the blue water Navy veterans have been shown to suffer 
those exact diseases at the same rate as the other exposed veterans, 
but some of my colleagues are wrongly insisting on a fifth study.
  We do not have another year to wait. Some of our veterans will not 
last that long. Many blue water veterans have already passed away from 
the disease associated with Agent Orange exposure.
  The 1991 bill to provide coverage for veterans exposed to Agent 
Orange didn't discriminate between those who served offshore and those 
who served on rivers or on the ground. Yet due to a decision by a VA 
bureaucrat in 2002, the coverage for those who served offshore was 
wiped out. It doesn't make any sense, and we must help all of our 
veterans.
  It would be tragic; it would be an absolute failure of this 
institution if we did not respond to this call for help from our 
veterans community. I urge my colleagues to reconsider their choice to 
block this legislation. The bill has had multiple hearings. It has gone 
through multiple drafts over the years. It has been subject to numerous 
studies.
  I have a letter right here to the CBO from the Military-Veterans 
Advocacy association, literally going through each of the arguments 
that Senator Enzi just made to explain why those aren't true.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             Military-Veterans Advocacy, Inc.,

                                                November 30, 2018.
     Re CBO Revision to the cost for H.R. 299.

     Hon. Keith Hall,
     Director, Congressional Budget Office,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Director Hall: I have reviewed the CBO letter of 
     November 29, 2018 to Senator Enzi concerning the score for 
     H.R. 299. By way of introduction I am a retired Navy 
     Commander familiar with manning policies and surface ship 
     operations during and immediately following the Vietnam War. 
     I am currently the Executive Director of Military-Veterans 
     Advocacy (MVA). MVA has been advocating for this bill since 
     2011. In January of 2015 we met with CBO analysts to provide 
     relevant information.
       I personally worked with the House Veterans Affairs 
     Committee to define the geographic points for the current 
     version of the bill. The geographic points are mirrored by 
     the red line on the enclosed chart. The dashed line 
     represents the boundary of the territorial sea which is 12 
     nautical miles seaward. In other words, the current language 
     in H.R. 299 exactly mirrors the boundaries of the territorial 
     sea. The bold line encompasses the entire theater of 
     operations which, as you can see, is much larger than the 
     area covered by H.R. 299. This same chart was provided to the 
     CBO in January of 2015 and was used as the basis for all 
     subsequent scoring. Accordingly, paragraph 2 of the CBO 
     letter is in error. There was no change in the nautical area.
       Additionally, it must be remembered that most ships 
     operated close to shore usually within the 10 fathom curve. 
     This was to maximize the field of fire for operations ashore. 
     Logistics ships conducting underway replenishment would try 
     to approach the gun line to reduce the time the gun ships 
     were offline. Consequently any minor changes in the nautical 
     area would have little or no effect.
       In preparation for the CBO meeting, MVA conducted a 
     manpower analysis of the ships that deployed. Records showed 
     that 713 ships deployed to the Vietnam theater of operations. 
     Congressional Research Service placed the number of personnel 
     in entire theater at 229,000. The same CRS publication pegged 
     the number of Navy personnel serving in Vietnam at 174,000. 
     American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and 
     Statistics (Feb. 2010) p. 11. Liaison with the

[[Page S7381]]

     Naval Historical and Heritage Command by MVA and the offices 
     of then Congressman Chris Gibson confirmed that the 174,000 
     number represented just those in the territorial sea, 
     internal rivers and on land. A analysis by MVA showed 173,500 
     personnel deployed on ships within the territorial sea. This 
     information was provided to CBO during the January 2015 
     meeting.
       Significant numbers of personnel deployed into the theater 
     are not included in H.R. 299. This includes ships, mostly 
     carriers, assigned to Yankee Station throughout the war. 
     Yankee Station was located at 17 deg. 30' N, 108 deg. 30' E 
     which is 30 nautical miles north of the Demilitarized Zone. 
     Multiple carrier battle groups were kept on station in this 
     area and seldom, if ever, transited south. A corresponding 
     station off South Vietnam, Dixie Station, was the site of one 
     carrier battle group designated for close air support 
     missions in South Vietnam. It was abandoned in the summer of 
     1966 as more warplanes became available for use in land based 
     airfields in South Vietnam. Dixie Station was located at 
     11 deg. N and 110 deg. E which is also outside the scope of 
     the bill. Admittedly, some ships from Dixie Station may have 
     entered the territorial sea but they should have been 
     included in 174,000 number.
       Navy ships at the time were not manned to full complement. 
     The authorized strength reflected on the Enlisted 
     Distribution and Manning Report (EDVR) included Reserves who 
     in time of war would be mobilized to round out the crew. 
     Instead ships were manned in accordance with the Navy Manning 
     Plan (NMP) that was roughly 80% of the personnel allowance 
     for the ship. Additionally, due to the length of the war, 
     many senior people, both officer and enlisted, made multiple 
     deployments. On the average, about 25% of the personnel 
     deployed into the territorial sea made multiple deployments. 
     This number is based on the rating structure for ships at the 
     time and the pay grade distribution as well as personal and 
     anecdotal knowledge.
       As of December 2014, MVA estimated that 80,305 personnel of 
     the 174,000 deployed were covered under existing law. This 
     number, along with the analysis, was presented to CBO. Since 
     that time, additional ships have been added to the ship's 
     list. Additionally, an accelerated death rate has claimed 
     many lives. It should also be remembered that on the average, 
     only one in three Vietnam era veterans seek any kind of VA 
     benefits.
       VA claims that the bill will require them to hire 
     additional people to prevent the unacceptable backlog from 
     expanding. This is preposterous. A significant amount of 
     personnel in the backlog are Blue Water Navy veterans. 
     Establishing a presumption will actually help the VA to 
     reduce the backlog.
       We believe that the VA estimates are overinflated and 
     designed to mislead CBO as to the impact of the cost of the 
     bill. Our current analysis supports the May 15, 2018 report 
     and we believe that CBO, in light of the information provided 
     herein, should revise their November 29, 2018 letter.
       If you or your staff have any questions, please feel free 
     to contact me. Additionally I will be in Washington, DC, next 
     week and available for meetings.
       Thank you for your consideration.
           Sincerely,

                                                John B. Wells,

                                          Commander USN (Retired),
                                               Executive Director.

  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. I hope all of us can come together to do the right 
thing by our veterans to make sure they get the coverage that they need 
and to stand by them in their greatest time of need.
  I yield the floor to my colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, as the lead Republican on this bill, I 
want to thank my colleague Senator Gillibrand for her leadership on 
this very important issue.
  I am a fiscal hawk. I look at every penny spent by the Federal 
Government. I respect Senator Enzi and Senator Lee and their views, 
especially on fiscal issues. I urge this body to pass the blue water 
Navy bill by unanimous consent. This is about justice. This is about a 
bureaucracy making a decision and really not following the intent of 
this Congress.
  It is correct that something was done wrong in 2002, as Senator 
Gillibrand has already laid out so eloquently. Our U.S. Navy veterans 
who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam have been 
denied proper care through the VA. Even though both Houses of Congress 
extended presumptive health coverage to all illnesses linked to Agent 
Orange, the VA thwarted congressional intent by choosing the narrowest 
possible definition of ``service in the Republic of Vietnam,'' which 
included the country's territorial waters.
  Our veterans deserve much better. It is unacceptable that a 
technicality in the law and a dysfunctional Federal bureaucracy have 
resulted in the prolonged suffering of thousands of our Nation's 
heroes. This legislation will ensure that the victims of Agent Orange-
related disease receive the care and compensation they have long 
deserved. I will continue to fight for our veterans just as they have 
fought for us.
  Thank you.
  I yield to my fellow Montanan, Senator Tester.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. I want to tell you, the only thing standing in the way of 
this bill passing is the Senate.
  I have a tremendous amount of respect for Senator Enzi. I know, as 
chair of the Budget Committee, he has a job to do, but we have a job to 
do.
  People sign up for our military, and promises are made. The promises 
that are made are the cost of war. The Vietnam war has been over for 
decades, and these folks are dying every day. This deal was Agent 
Orange exposure. If you served on the mainland of Vietnam, you are 
covered, but if you were on a boat on the ocean next to Vietnam, you 
were not.
  I am going to tell you something. If you have been around weed spray, 
which is what Agent Orange is--it is a defoliant--and if you have been 
around it, you don't have to be sprayed with it to be exposed to it. 
All you have to be is downwind. These folks on the ocean were downwind. 
Why do we know that? Because there has been study after study showing 
that these folks who served on the ocean next to Vietnam are suffering 
from a higher level of cancer, hypertension, and heart disease.
  We have a job to do here, folks. There are 30 VSOs, maybe more than 
that--Veterans Service Organizations--that expect us to act and do the 
right thing here today. I will tell you, the chairman of the Veterans' 
Affairs Committee, Johnny Isakson, has done a marvelous job this 
Congress, doing what is right for our veterans and making sure the VA 
has what is needed to serve our veterans. This is not the VA.
  I know there are some in the administration who don't want to see us 
do this. But the truth is, this is a cost of war. It is our obligation 
to meet the needs of those folks who have sacrificed for this country. 
It is time to step up today, folks. We are the only thing standing in 
the way of this bill being passed and doing right by our Vietnam 
veterans.
  I want to close with one thing. Since I have been ranking member and 
since I have been a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I have 
talked to a lot of Vietnam veterans. These are the folks who came back 
from war, and there was nobody at the airport waiting for them--nobody. 
They couldn't wear their uniforms on the streets of our towns. Now we 
are going to deny them the benefit that they have earned because they 
were exposed to Agent Orange. There is no doubt they were exposed to 
Agent Orange.
  It is time to look at ourselves here in the Senate and step up and 
say: Do you know what? It does cost a lot of money. Do you know what? 
It has been studied to death, and it can be studied some more, but the 
bottom line is, we need to do right by the folks who were willing to 
serve in the Vietnam war. Some of them were drafted. Some of them 
signed up on their own. But the bottom line is, they all expected to 
get the benefits. This is a benefit they should get.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. I thank Senator Tester, Senator Isakson, Senator 
Gillibrand, and Senator Blumenthal.
  This is the cost of war. This is simple. If you were exposed to 
poison while serving our country, you deserve the benefits you have 
earned--no exception. My office holds roundtables with veterans all 
over the State. We have held more than a dozen over the past several 
months. We hear Ohio veteran after Ohio veteran raise this issue time 
and again.
  Joe Benedict from Cleveland talked about how important these benefits 
are to veterans like him. Last week, I met with Mike Kvintus, another 
blue water Navy veteran from Cambridge, OH. He is 71 years old, and he 
drove 4 hours from his home in Eastern Ohio to get here. He talked to 
Members of Congress about what a burden the senseless policy is for so 
many veterans he knows who have already sacrificed for this

[[Page S7382]]

country. He urged us to put politics aside.
  That is what Senator Tester and Senator Gillibrand and Senator 
Isakson have asked us to do. Last year, we introduced the Blue Water 
Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, which would guarantee that all Vietnam 
veterans exposed to toxic Agent Orange chemicals have equal access to 
the care and benefits they have earned.
  A number of us, myself included, raised the issue with VA Secretary 
Wilkie, both in private meetings in our office and in the Veterans' 
Affairs Committee, pressing him to expand benefits to all veterans.
  Mr. Kvintus and Mr. Benedict and all of the veterans in our States--
Georgia, Connecticut, Montana, New York, and Ohio--we all hear this. We 
all know that these veterans put themselves in harm's way. It is the 
cost of war.
  We need to show the American people we can work together. We should 
start by putting partisanship aside, passing this bill tonight, and 
finally getting the care for veterans that they deserve.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues Senator 
Brown, Senator Tester, most importantly, Senator Gillibrand, and our 
good friend Senator Isakson.
  Senator Isakson and Senator Gillibrand and I worked together closely 
on this issue when I was the ranking member of the Senate Veterans' 
Affairs Committee. We engaged the VA through hearings, through 
meetings, through any way that we could reach the VA so that it would 
grant the presumption to all veterans who served in the territorial 
waters of Vietnam during the Vietnam war and were exposed to Agent 
Orange, to give them simple justice, and to treat them with the same 
presumption of service-connected disability as their fellow veterans 
who served in the Vietnam conflict with boots on the ground. If they 
served in those territorial waters, they deserve that same presumption.
  Beyond the abstraction here, I want to talk about the face and voice 
of this problem, which, for me, is my good friend Gerry Wright.
  Gerry Wright rode across this country on a motorcycle. The mantra on 
the motorcycle was ``Sprayed and Betrayed.'' Gerry Wright is a victim 
of Agent Orange. He suffers from some of the same conditions as those 
brave veterans who served with boots on the ground. He joined me, along 
with Paul Scappaticci, Cinthia Johnson, and Gary Monk on Veterans Day. 
Just as he rode across the country, we came together to raise awareness 
about this issue.
  If Americans saw and heard those faces and voices, if my colleagues 
heeded their call, there would be no objection in this body to this 
legislation. It is all of us who share a responsibility, and it is the 
VA that has to acknowledge responsibility, as well, for its opposition 
over the years and its actions blocking simple justice for these 
veterans.
  In the absence of justice from the VA, we have fought over these 
years--just as the blue water Navy veterans have fought for decades--to 
achieve that justice, and 5 months ago, that justice seemed within 
reach when the House unanimously passed, 382 to 0, the Blue Water Navy 
Vietnam Veterans Act.
  The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee held a hearing on this 
legislation in August. Members had more than sufficient time to 
consider the language. There are more than ample funds to cover it. 
There is no reason--none whatsoever--for delaying this legislation, 
which has such broad support from the Veterans Service Organizations, 
stakeholders, and members of this body.
  I want to remind my colleagues that this legislation also includes a 
provision that I led with Senator Moran and Senator Tester that would 
treat with fairness our Korean veterans. It is called the Fairness for 
Korean DMZ Veterans Act, ensuring all veterans who served in the Korean 
DMZ, when Agent Orange was used there, that they will also receive the 
healthcare and benefits they deserve. This measure is about justice for 
our Vietnam veterans, for our Korean war veterans, and it is a symbol, 
as well as a tangible and profoundly significant benefit of our 
commitment to cover the cost of war. This measure is not about a gift. 
It is not about charity. It is about what we owe the veteran. It is 
about keeping faith, making sure that we leave none of those veterans 
behind, and that we give them the simple justice they deserve. They 
have fought for this recognition over years, and ``sprayed and 
betrayed'' will be the appropriate designation if we fail in this duty 
for them.

  Again, I thank Senator Gillibrand and Senator Daines for their 
leadership, and I urge my colleagues to support this measure.
  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. 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.

                          ____________________