[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1288-1300]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

     NOMINATION OF CHARLES TIMOTHY HAGEL TO BE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to 
consider Calendar No. 10.
  The clerk will report:
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to the nomination of Charles Timothy 
     Hagel, of Nebraska, to be Secretary of Defense.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the motion to proceed is 
agreed to.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk and ask 
the clerk to report.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The assistant 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, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of 
     Charles Timothy Hagel, of Nebraska, to be Secretary of 
     Defense.
         Harry Reid, Patrick J. Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Barbara 
           Boxer, Al Franken, Christopher A. Coons, Jack Reed, 
           Carl Levin, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Claire McCaskill, 
           Robert P. Casey, Jr., Richard Blumenthal, Tom Harkin, 
           Dianne Feinstein, Bill Nelson, Jeanne Shaheen, Sherrod 
           Brown.

  Mr. REID. This is the first time in the history of our country that a 
Presidential nominee for Secretary of Defense has been filibustered. 
What a shame, but that is the way it is.
  I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be 
waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I also ask that under the rule the cloture vote will occur 
on Friday. Membership should plan accordingly.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Michigan is 
recognized.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, now that the nomination of Senator Hagel is 
before us, I want to begin this discussion and debate with a few 
remarks about him. The committee approved this nomination and sent it 
to the floor of the Senate yesterday by a vote of 14 to 11.
  Senator Hagel has received broad support from a wide array of senior 
statesmen, defense, and foreign policy organizations. At his January 31 
nomination hearing before the Armed Services Committee, Senator Hagel 
was enthusiastically introduced and endorsed by two former chairmen of 
our committee, chairmen who have huge bipartisan support and respect by 
everybody in this body and everybody outside of this body who knows 
them. Those two chairmen are Sam Nunn and John Warner.
  Senator Hagel's nomination has been endorsed by five former 
Secretaries of Defense who served under both Democratic and Republican 
Presidents: Bob Gates, Bill Cohen, Bill Perry, Harold Brown, and Melvin 
Laird. He has been endorsed by three former Secretaries of State--
Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and George Shultz--and by six former 
National Security Advisers who served in that position for more than 20 
years under six of the last seven Presidents.
  Let me just share with our colleagues a few of the words of Senator 
Nunn when he introduced Senator Hagel to our committee:

       I believe our Nation is fortunate to have a nominee for 
     Secretary of Defense with the character, experience, courage 
     and the leadership that Chuck Hagel would bring to this 
     position. First, Chuck is acutely aware that even in an age 
     of rapid technological advances, our military capability and 
     effectiveness depend on the quality and the morale of the 
     people who serve our Nation in uniform, as well as the 
     families who support them.

  Continuing:

       Chuck received two Purple Hearts in Vietnam, and when he 
     returned home he continued to fight for veterans and for 
     Active-Duty military personnel. He knows that our people are 
     our strongest asset. Second, Chuck's experience in Vietnam 
     shaped his life and his perspective. War for Chuck Hagel is 
     not abstraction. I am confident, if confirmed, he will ask 
     the hard and smart questions before sending troops into 
     battle. Chuck Hagel knows the United States has vital 
     interests that are worth fighting for and dying for. He also 
     knows that war should be a last resort and that our Nation 
     must effectively use all of our tools, not limited only to 
     our military, to protect our important and our vital 
     interests.

  Senator Nunn continued:

       Certainly there is a tension in these values, but it is a 
     tension that we should welcome in the thought process and in 
     the advice that our Secretary of Defense gives to our 
     Commander in Chief and to this Congress.
       From our service together on the Defense Policy Board in 
     recent years, I know that Chuck Hagel has a clear world view 
     and that it aligns with the mainstream of U.S. foreign and 
     defense policy, and also with President Obama. Chuck Hagel 
     believes that we must build and preserve America's strength 
     as a force for good in the world. He recognizes that 
     protecting our interests requires strong allies and friends, 
     as well as strong American leadership.

  Senator Warner's extraordinarily powerful and warm comments included 
as follows:

       There is an old saying in the combat army infantry and 
     Marine Corps. ``Certain men are asked to take the point.'' 
     Which means to get out and lead in the face of the enemy. 
     Chuck Hagel did that as a sergeant in Vietnam. If confirmed, 
     Chuck Hagel will do it again. This time not before a platoon 
     but before every man and woman and their families in the 
     Armed Services. He will lead them and they will know in their 
     hearts that we have one of our own.

  Senator Hagel has received a letter of endorsement from 11 retired 
senior military officers who say Chuck Hagel is uniquely qualified to 
meet the challenges facing the Department of Defense and our men and 
women in uniform.
  He has received a letter of endorsement from nine former Ambassadors 
who worked with him on Middle East issues. That letter says, in part:

       Each of us has known the Senator over the past 20 years and 
     has found him invariably one of the best informed leaders in 
     the U.S. Congress on the issues of U.S. national security. . 
     . . Senator Hagel's political courage has impressed us all. . 
     . . Time and again he chose to take the path of standing up 
     for our nation over political expediency. . . . He has 
     invariably demonstrated strong support for Israel and for a 
     two-state solution and has been opposed to those who would 
     undermine or threaten Israel's security. We can think of few 
     more qualified, more nonpartisan, more courageous, or better 
     equipped to head the Department of Defense.

  That is from nine former Ambassadors who worked with Senator Hagel on 
Middle East issues. Let me read who those Ambassadors are: Nicholas 
Burns, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, 
Ambassador to NATO and Greece; Ryan Crocker, former Ambassador to Iraq 
and Afghanistan; Edward Djerejian, former Ambassador to Israel and 
Syria; William Harrop, former Ambassador to Israel; Daniel Kurtzer, 
former Ambassador to Israel and to Egypt; Samuel Lewis, former 
Ambassador to Israel; William Luers, former Ambassador to Venezuela and 
Czechoslovakia; Tom Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for 
Political Affairs, Ambassador to Israel and Russia; and Frank Wisner, 
former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Ambassador to Egypt 
and to India.

[[Page 1289]]

  Senator Hagel's nomination has been supported by the major groups of 
American veterans, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Iraq and 
Afghanistan Veterans of America, AMVETS, Vietnam Veterans of America, 
and the American Legion. He has received support from the Military 
Officers Association of America, Foreign Area Officer Association, and 
the Non Commissioned Officers Association.
  Senator Hagel has been endorsed by numerous newspapers, including USA 
Today, which stated:

       Many of the supposed weaknesses that Republican Senators 
     hammered him on are actually proof that Hagel takes 
     thoughtful positions and doesn't bend easily to pressure.

  I would like to read just a few quotes from those organizations of 
veterans who have endorsed him. The Veterans of Foreign Wars says the 
following:

       It is not the place for America's oldest and largest combat 
     veterans organization to advise or recommend to the President 
     who he should nominate for cabinet positions. However, the 
     Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States considers Chuck 
     Hagel, twice wounded Vietnam War veteran, war infantryman, 
     and former two-term United States Senator from Nebraska, to 
     be uniquely qualified to lead the Department of Defense.

  That is signed by Robert Wallace, who is executive director of the 
VFW.
  The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America wrote the following:

       Without Senator Hagel's leadership in Washington, there 
     would not be a post 9/11 GI bill. Senator Hagel has always 
     been a strong advocate for veterans at the Department of 
     Defense. There is no doubt he will continue that legacy. Time 
     and time again, from Vietnam to the VA to the USO, Senator 
     Hagel has answered his country's call to serve, demonstrating 
     courage, character and resolve at every turn. We encourage 
     the Senate to approve his nomination swiftly.
       Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

  The AMVETS National Commander Cleve Geer endorsed President Obama's 
nomination of Chuck Hagel with the following comments:

       AMVETS fully supports President Obama's nomination of Chuck 
     Hagel for the future Secretary of Defense. As a veterans 
     service organization, AMVETS' main mission is to serve as an 
     advocate for veterans, their families and the communities in 
     which they live. I am confident that former Senator Hagel 
     will utilize his experience and understanding of America's 
     military to lead this Nation's troops and the Department of 
     Defense.

  The organization votevets.org wrote the following in a petition 
signed by over 8,000 veterans and military families:

       Senator Hagel is a tremendous pick for Secretary of Defense 
     who I know very well, and I have little doubt that he will 
     serve President Obama with distinction both as a voice of 
     reason within the administration and as a faithful advocate 
     for carrying out the policies of the Commander in Chief.

  That was signed by John Soltz.
  The Military Officers Association of America wrote the following:

       While the Military Officers Association of America does not 
     endorse or oppose specific candidates for elected or 
     appointed office, we believe Senator Hagel is certainly a 
     candidate who is fully qualified for appointment to this 
     extremely important position. Our past work with Senator 
     Hagel has been very positive, and we believe that he brings 
     an important sensitivity to the human side of budget and 
     operational considerations. His experience as a combat 
     wounded Vietnam veteran, as deputy administrator of the VA, 
     and his two terms in the Senate provide a range of 
     perspectives that would serve any Secretary of Defense well. 
     We previously recognized Senator Hagel's efforts to protect 
     the interests of military beneficiaries with our Arthur T. 
     Marix Congressional Leadership Award. We do not believe that 
     cabinet nominees should be held hostage to political litmus 
     tests.

  That was signed by ADM Norbert Ryan, USN, retired, President of the 
Military Officers Association of America.
  The Non Commissioned Officers Association of the United States wrote 
the following:

       We strongly support the appointment of Chuck Hagel to be 
     Secretary of Defense. His military service, including being 
     twice wounded in action, has instilled the values of service 
     and personal sacrifice for which he knows well the human cost 
     of war. He has been an advocate for soldiers, Marines, 
     sailors, airmen and coasties to ensure the training and 
     equipage of America's 21st military force coincide with a 
     solid revised defense posture to meet conventional and 
     unconventional world challenges. Senator Hagel has also 
     championed personnel issues relating to combat dwell time, 
     force protection, transition issues, including electronic 
     medical issues, preparation for future employment and 
     training, and veterans benefits, including enhancements to 
     post 9/11 educational benefits. He also recognizes the value 
     and the sacrifice of families of the men and women who serve 
     in this Nation's uniformed services.

  That was signed by Richard Schneider, executive director for 
government affairs.
  The Vietnam Veterans of America wrote:

       We like Hagel. We think he is a great guy, and having a 
     combat veteran in there would be a good thing.

  The American Legion wrote:

       Hagel is a long-time member of the Legion. He served right 
     after he returned from Vietnam. He is a long-time advocate 
     for veterans in the VA, and especially for veterans exposed 
     to Agent Orange. Our organization has consulted with him, 
     among others, on various national security matters. Having 
     said that, the American Legion is prohibited by our 
     congressional charter from endorsing any candidate for 
     elected or appointed office.

  The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Jan Scruggs, founder and 
president, wrote the following:

       I first met Mr. Hagel in 1981 when he was the No. 2 man at 
     the Veterans Administration. He had just thrown out of his 
     office some people who were demanding that he stop his 
     support for Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam veterans 
     memorial. His integrity and toughness were impressive then. 
     Both qualities have grown since. Long before he became a 
     Senator, Mr. Hagel was an infantryman in Vietnam. He fought 
     the enemy up close, and he had to put Americans in body bags. 
     I am sure as defense secretary he would not hesitate to use 
     military force aggressively if our Nation or its allies are 
     in danger, yet he knows well that war is terribly 
     unpredictable and needs to be avoided. He has shown some fury 
     at those who have never seen war, but encouraged it during 
     the past decade. This is called courage. He has earned his 
     stripes.

  Senator Hagel's credentials are underscored by the service in war and 
in peace that has been described so eloquently in all those letters 
from those veterans organizations. As a young man, Senator Hagel 
enlisted in the Army and served in Vietnam, where he received two 
Purple Hearts, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Combat Infantryman 
Badge for his service.
  He volunteered to go to Vietnam. He answered the question, where are 
you, by answering, here I am. Senator Hagel served as Deputy 
Administrator of the Veterans' Administration during the Reagan 
administration. He was twice elected to the Senate, where he served on 
the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees.
  Since he left the Senate 4 years ago, Senator Hagel has served as 
chairman of the board of directors of the Atlantic Council. The 
Atlantic Council counts among its other directors and honorary 
directors seven former Secretaries of State and four former Secretaries 
of Defense, along with numerous other senior officials from the 
administrations of both parties. The Atlantic Council is very much a 
part of the mainstream of the American foreign policy establishment.
  Much of the time and attention at our committee hearing was devoted 
to a handful of statements Senator Hagel made over the course of his 
career that raised questions about his views on Israel, Iran, and other 
issues.
  Senator Hagel explained and clarified these things and placed them in 
context. He apologized for one remark, and told the committee he would 
say other things differently if he had the chance or was making them 
over. Senator Hagel was clear in the positions he takes today and that 
he will take if confirmed as Secretary of Defense. In particular, 
Senator Hagel stated unequivocally, first:

       Iran poses a significant threat to the United States, our 
     allies and partners, and our interests in the region and 
     globally. Iran continues to pursue an illicit nuclear program 
     that threatens to provoke a regional arms race and undermine 
     the global non-proliferation regime. Iran is also one of the 
     main state-sponsors of terrorism and could spark conflict, 
     including against U.S. personnel and interests.

  Second, he is ``. . . fully committed to the President's goal of 
preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon . . . all options must 
be on the table to achieve that goal . . .'' and his policy, if 
confirmed, will be ``one of prevention, not of containment.''

[[Page 1290]]

  Third, while he believes ``engagement is clearly in our interests,'' 
``engagement is not negotiation.'' He stated:

       I've never thought engagement is weakness. I never thought 
     it was surrender. I never thought it was appeasement. I think 
     it's clearly in our interest. . . . [G]et the international 
     sanctions behind you, keep military options on the table. If 
     the military option is the only option, it's the only option.

  Finally, he said that he is ``a strong supporter of Israel,'' and 
believes that ``we have a special relationship with Israel.'' If 
confirmed, he ``will ensure our friend and ally Israel maintains its 
qualitative military edge in the region, and will continue to support 
systems like Iron Dome, which is today saving Israeli lives from 
terrorist rocket attacks.''
  Senator Hagel has also recognized the very real risks posed to our 
national security as a result of the unique budgetary pressure arising 
out of cuts previously agreed upon by Congress, the budgeting by 
continuing resolution, and the impending threat of a sequester. Senator 
Hagel told the committee:

       [Sequestration] if allowed to occur, would damage our 
     readiness, our people, and our military families. It would 
     result in the grounding of aircraft and returning ships to 
     port, reducing the Department's global presence and ability 
     to rapidly respond to contingencies. Vital training would be 
     reduced by half of current plans and the Department would be 
     unable to reset equipment from Afghanistan in a timely 
     manner. The Department would reduce training and maintenance 
     for non-deploying units and would be forced to reduce 
     procurement of vital weapons systems and suffer the 
     subsequent schedule delays and price increases. Civilian 
     employees would be furloughed for up to 22 days. All of these 
     effects also negatively impact long-term readiness. It would 
     send a terrible signal to our military and civilian 
     workforce, to those we hope to recruit, and to both our 
     allies and adversaries around the world.

  One of our colleagues has alleged that Senator Hagel has failed to 
provide complete financial disclosure and suggested, despite the 
admitted lack of evidence of any kind, that Senator Hagel may have 
received money that ``came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly 
from North Korea.'' There is no evidence for that, but that is the kind 
of innuendo which was made and I believe should not have been made.
  As a matter of fact, Senator Hagel has provided the exact same 
financial disclosure the committee requires of all nominees, including 
at least the last eight Secretaries of Defense. As required by the 
Armed Services Committee and by the Ethics in Government Act, he has 
disclosed all compensation over $5,000 that he has received in the last 
2 years. As required by the Armed Services Committee, he has received 
letters from the Director of the Office of Government Ethics and the 
Acting Department of Defense General Counsel certifying that he has met 
all applicable financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest 
requirements. As required by the Armed Services Committee, he has 
answered a series of questions about possible foreign affiliations. 
Among other questions, the committee asked whether, during the last 10 
years, the nominee or his spouse have ``received any compensation from, 
or been involved in any financial or business transaction with, a 
foreign government or an entity controlled by a foreign government.'' 
Senator Hagel's answer was, ``No.''
  Senator Hagel, like all of our nominees, has undergone a thorough FBI 
background investigation. Senator Inhofe and I have reviewed the FBI 
file. The innuendo that Senator Hagel could somehow be hiding the fact 
he is on the payroll of a foreign power is offensive to those of us who 
have served with him and beneath the dignity of the U.S. Senate.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a series of 
letters in which certain Senators requested certain financial 
disclosure and the letter with which I responded.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                      U.S. Senate,


                                  Committee on Armed Services,

                                 Washington, DC, February 8, 2013.
     Hon. Jim Inhofe,
     Ranking Minority Member,
     Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate.
       Dear Jim: I read with some concern a February 6, 2013, 
     letter that you signed with 25 other Republican Senators, 
     demanding that former Senator Chuck Hagel provide additional 
     financial disclosure information in connection with his 
     nomination to serve as Secretary of Defense. This letter 
     appears to insist upon financial disclosure requirements that 
     far exceed the standard practices of the Armed Services 
     Committee and go far beyond the financial disclosure required 
     of previous Secretaries of Defense.
       Our committee has a well-defined set of financial 
     disclosure and ethics requirements which apply to all 
     nominees for civilian positions in the Department of Defense. 
     We require each nominee to provide us with the following: a 
     copy of the Nominee Public Financial Disclosure Report 
     required by the Ethics in Government Act--OGE Form 278; a 
     response to a standard committee questionnaire, which 
     includes questions on future employment relationships, 
     potential conflicts of interest, personal financial data, and 
     foreign affiliations; and a formal ethics agreement, which 
     outlines the steps the nominee will take to avoid any 
     potential conflict of interest, including a commitment by the 
     nominee to divest DOD contractor stocks within 90 days of 
     appointment to office, avoid buying DOD contractor stocks 
     while in office, and resign from non-Federal boards and 
     activities.
       Before these materials are provided to the committee, they 
     are reviewed by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) 
     and the DOD General Counsel's office--both of which are 
     familiar with the unique conflict of interest requirements 
     imposed by our committee--to ensure that the required 
     disclosures of information meet our standards. The leader of 
     each of these offices sends us a letter certifying that the 
     office has reviewed the financial disclosure and determined 
     that the nominee will be in compliance with applicable laws 
     and regulations governing conflicts of interest. Our majority 
     and minority counsels review these materials and work 
     together, through the DOD General Counsel's office, to 
     address any questions that may arise about the completeness 
     of the materials provided or the nominee's compliance with 
     our requirements.
       We have applied these disclosure requirements and followed 
     this process for all nominees of both parties throughout the 
     16 years that I have served as Chairman or Ranking Minority 
     Member of the committee. I understand that the same financial 
     disclosure requirements and processes were followed for at 
     least the previous 10 years, during which Senator Sam Nunn 
     served as Chairman or Ranking Minority Member. During this 
     period, the committee has confirmed eight Secretaries of 
     Defense (Secretaries Carlucci, Cheney, Aspin, Perry, Cohen, 
     Rumsfeld, Gates, and Panetta), as well as hundreds of 
     nominees for other senior civilian positions in the 
     Department.
       There are two unprecedented elements to the financial 
     disclosure demanded by the February 6, letter: (1) the 
     disclosure of ``all compensation over $5,000 that [Senator 
     Hagel has] received over the past five years''; and (2) the 
     disclosure of any foreign funding of eight private entities 
     from which Senator Hagel has received compensation since 
     leaving the Senate (including the date, source, and specific 
     amount of each foreign contribution). Each of these demands 
     goes well beyond what the committee has required of any 
     previous nominee.
       With regard to the demand that Senator Hagel disclose all 
     compensation over $5,000 that he has received over the past 
     five years, the standard financial disclosure form which the 
     committee requires all nominees to provide calls for the 
     disclosure of all entities from which the nominee has 
     received compensation in excess of $5,000 (including clients 
     for whom the nominee personally provided more than $5,000 in 
     services, even if the payments were made to the nominee's 
     employer, firm, or affiliated business) during the previous 
     two years. The two-year disclosure requirement that has been 
     consistently applied by the committee is established in 
     section 102(b)(1)(A) of the Ethics in Government Act and 
     applies not only to all nominees for Senate-confirmed 
     positions, but also to all candidates for federal elective 
     office.
       With regard to the demand that Senator Hagel disclose 
     foreign funding for private entities from which he has 
     received compensation, the February 6 letter asserts that 
     this information is needed because ``If it is the case that 
     [Senator Hagel] personally [has] received substantial 
     financial remuneration--either directly or indirectly--from 
     foreign governments, sovereign wealth funds, lobbyists, 
     corporations, or individuals, that information is at the very 
     minimum relevant to this Committee's assessment of your 
     nomination.''
       In fact, the committee questionnaire addresses the issue of 
     foreign affiliations in a manner that is equally applicable 
     to all civilian nominees coming before the committee. Among 
     other questions, the committee questionnaire asks whether, 
     during the last ten years, the nominee or his spouse has 
     ``received any compensation from, or been involved in any 
     financial or business transactions with, a foreign government 
     or an entity controlled by a foreign government.'' Senator 
     Hagel's answer to this question was ``No.''

[[Page 1291]]

       The demands of the February 6 letter go beyond this 
     standard disclosure regime and would subject Senator Hagel to 
     a different requirement from all previous nominees, under 
     which he alone would be required to somehow ascertain whether 
     certain entities with whom he has been employed may have 
     received foreign contributions. In particular:
       Senator Hagel serves without compensation as the Chairman 
     of the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council--a ``think 
     tank'' that includes among its other Directors and Honorary 
     Directors seven former Secretaries of States and four former 
     Secretaries of Defense. The Atlantic Council's public website 
     provides a diverse list of corporate contributors, including 
     both domestic companies (such as Chevron, General Dynamics, 
     Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, Citigroup, Duke Energy, and Exxon 
     Mobil) and foreign entities (such as Polish Telecom, Saab, 
     All Nippon Airways, and the Istanbul Stock Exchange). Over 
     the 16 years that I have served as either Chairman or Ranking 
     Minority Member of the committee, we have considered numerous 
     nominations of individuals who were associated with similar 
     think tanks, universities, and other non-profit entities. 
     Even in the many cases where a nominee received compensation 
     from such a nonprofit entity, we did not require the nominee 
     to disclose the sources of funding provided to the non-profit 
     entity.
       Senator Hagel has also served as an Advisory Board Member, 
     Senior Advisor, Director, Special Advisor, or Board Member to 
     seven domestic for-profit entities identified in the February 
     6 letter since he left the Senate in January 2009. His 
     financial disclosure report and committee questionnaire 
     indicate that he left four of these entities (Wolfensohn & 
     Company, National Interest Security Company, Elite Training & 
     Security, and Kaseman, LLC) in 2010 and has received no 
     compensation from them during the two-year reporting period 
     covered by the Ethics in Government Act. Nonetheless, the 
     February 6 letter demands that Senator Hagel provide ten 
     years of corporate financial data on foreign investments or 
     funding received by these entities. The forms and committee 
     questionnaire indicate that Senator Hagel continues to serve 
     as an Advisory Board Member for Corsair Capital, a Senior 
     Advisor to McCarthy Capital, and a Special Advisor to the 
     Chairman of M.I.C. Industries and that he has received 
     compensation for his service to these three entities. I am 
     doubtful that, as mere advisor to these companies, Senator 
     Hagel has either access to the corporate financial 
     information that is sought in the February 6 letter or the 
     authority to release such information if he were able to get 
     access to it. In any case, over the 16 years that I have 
     served as either Chairman or Ranking Minority Member of the 
     committee, we have considered numerous nominations of 
     individuals who were employed by for-profit entities of every 
     variety. We have considered board members, officers, 
     directors, and employees of companies doing business across 
     the full range of our economy. In this time, we have never 
     required the nominee to attempt to ascertain and disclose the 
     names of investors in such an entity.
       The committee cannot have two different sets of financial 
     disclosure standards for nominees, one for Senator Hagel and 
     one for other nominees.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Carl Levin,
     Chairman.
                                  ____



                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                 Washington, DC, February 6, 2013.
     Hon. Chuck Hagel,
     Distinguished Professor in the Practice of National 
         Government, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, 
         Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, NW, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Hagel: On January 29, two days before your 
     confirmation hearing, you received a request, via email, from 
     several Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee for 
     additional information necessary to fairly assess your 
     nomination to be Secretary of Defense. The written copy of 
     the letter (delivered the next day) was signed by six 
     Senators, including the Ranking Member of the Committee. The 
     letter requested that you respond to the request before the 
     hearing, so that you could then answer questions concerning 
     your responses.
       You declined to respond to the request for additional 
     financial disclosure.
       At the hearing, you were told by Members of the Committee 
     that a response to our request for information would be 
     necessary before the Committee could vote on your nomination. 
     The Chairman of the Committee expressly asked you to submit 
     your response by Monday, February 4.
       Monday came and went, and you still did not respond.
       At the end of the day on Tuesday, February 5, you submitted 
     a short ``response'' to our request. In that response, you 
     explicitly declined to answer many of the questions asked of 
     you.
       You were asked to disclose all compensation over $5,000 
     that you have received over the past five years. You declined 
     to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--the Atlantic Council has received foreign funding in 
     the past five years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--McCarthy Capital has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so,
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Corsair Capital has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Wolfensohn and Company has received foreign funding 
     in the past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--M.I.C. Industries has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--the National Interest Security Company has received 
     foreign funding in the ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Elite Training and Security, LLC has received foreign 
     funding in the past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Kaseman, LLC has received foreign funding in the past 
     ten years. You declined to do so.
       Your own financial records are entirely within your own 
     control, and you have flatly refused to comply with the 
     Committee Members' request for supplemental information.
       The records from the other firms--more than one of which, 
     you have disclosed, paid you $100,000 or more--are highly 
     relevant to the proper consideration of your nomination. Your 
     letter discloses no affirmative efforts on your part to 
     obtain the needed disclosure, and your lack of effort to 
     provide a substantive response on this issue is deeply 
     troubling.
       If it is the case that you personally have received 
     substantial financial remuneration--either directly or 
     indirectly--from foreign governments, sovereign wealth funds, 
     lobbyists, corporations, or individuals, that information is 
     at the very minimum relevant to this Committee's assessment 
     of your nomination. Such remuneration may be entirely 
     appropriate, but that determination cannot be made without 
     disclosure.
       If you have not received remuneration--directly or 
     indirectly--from foreign sources, then proper disclosure will 
     easily demonstrate that fact.
       Your refusal to respond to this reasonable request suggests 
     either a lack of respect for the Senate's responsibility to 
     advise and consent or that you are for some reason unwilling 
     to allow this financial disclosure to come to light.
       This Committee, and the American people, have a right to 
     know if a nominee for Secretary of Defense has received 
     compensation, directly or indirectly, from foreign sources. 
     Until the Committee receives full and complete answers, it 
     cannot in good faith determine whether you should be 
     confirmed as Secretary of Defense.
       Therefore, in the judgment of the undersigned, a Committee 
     vote on your nomination should not occur unless and until you 
     provide the requested information.
           Sincerely,
     (Signed by 26 Senators).
                                  ____

                                                 February 8, 2013.
     Hon. Carl Levin,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. James Inhofe,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Levin and Ranking Member Inhofe: I appreciate 
     the opportunity to respond to the February 6, 2013, letter 
     from 25 Senators, including several members of the Senate 
     Armed Services Committee. I remain committed to providing the 
     Committee with complete personal financial disclosure, in 
     accordance with the applicable requirements of law and 
     regulation. In the spirit of cooperation, I have gone beyond 
     those requirements in several areas. For example, although 
     the committee questionnaire requires that nominees provide 
     copies of ``any formal speeches,'' I have sought transcripts 
     of informal speeches of which I did not have copies, and 
     provided those transcripts to the committee.
       In that same spirit of cooperation, I have reviewed each of 
     the specific requests for information described in your 
     letter. While some of these requests appear to go beyond what 
     is either in my control or is mine to release under the law, 
     I am committed to providing what I can--and when I cannot, to 
     explain why not.
       As you know, I previously submitted all of the information 
     required by the Committee's standard financial disclosure 
     processes. This includes information regarding compensation 
     that I received over the past two years, as reported on the 
     Nominee Public Financial Disclosure Report in Schedule D. To 
     assist you in reviewing this information, I have prepared a 
     chart that reflects all compensation over $5,000 I received 
     for that time period.
       Further, you asked questions about whether, and the extent 
     to which, eight identified entities (with which I have been 
     affiliated) have received foreign funding in the past. As I 
     explained in my response to the Committee, dated February 5, 
     2013, my legal and

[[Page 1292]]

     fiduciary obligations prevent me from releasing this kind of 
     corporate financial information for those entities that are 
     privately owned/held. One of the entities that you inquired 
     about, Atlantic Council, is a 501(c)(3) organization which 
     permits greater public disclosure of its funding Streams. 
     While Atlantic Council does not make public a comprehensive 
     list of all its donors, it does publicly acknowledge its 
     foreign corporate and foreign government donors of $5,000 or 
     more. I have attached a copy of Atlantic Council's publicly 
     available list of these foreign donors over the past five 
     years. Because I serve without compensation, I have not been 
     a direct or indirect beneficiary of these contributions. Of 
     the remaining seven companies, McCarthy Capital, Wolfensohn, 
     M.I.C. Industries, National Interest Security Company, 
     Kaseman, and Elite Training & Security have authorized me to 
     inform you that they have not compensated me with any 
     foreign-derived funds. Corsair Capital has been advised by 
     its outside counsel that it cannot provide further 
     information regarding its finances.
       I wish to reiterate that I have not received any 
     compensation from or been involved in any financial or 
     business transactions with a foreign government or an entity 
     controlled by a foreign government. This is reflected in my 
     response to the SASC Questionnaire, Question 3, Part E--
     Foreign Affiliations.
       Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your questions.
           Sincerely,
                                                      Chuck Hagel.

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Department of Defense right now needs 
its new leader. Its current leader, who has done a great job, has 
announced he is leaving and has set a time for that departure.
  We face a budgetary challenge of immense proportions--not just in the 
Department of Defense but in all of our agencies. Our military is 
engaged in combat operations overseas. North Korea has exploded a 
nuclear device--highly provocative, highly objectionable--and must be 
countered. The absence of senior leaders in the Department of Defense 
will harm our national defense, will harm our men and women in uniform, 
and sends exactly the wrong message to both our friends and our 
adversaries around the world.
  If confirmed, Senator Hagel would be the first former enlisted man 
and the first veteran of the Vietnam war to serve as Secretary of 
Defense. This background gives Senator Hagel an invaluable perspective 
not only with respect to the difficult decisions and recommendations a 
Secretary of Defense must make regarding the use of force and the 
commitment of U.S. troops overseas but also with respect to the day-to-
day decisions a Secretary must make to ensure our men and women in 
uniform and their families receive the support and the assistance they 
need and deserve. It would be a positive message for our soldiers, our 
sailors, our airmen, and our marines in harm's way around the world to 
know that one of their own holds the highest office in the Department 
of Defense and that he has their backs.
  The President needs to have a Secretary of Defense in whom he has 
trust, who will give him unvarnished advice, a person of integrity, and 
one who has a personal understanding of the consequences of decisions 
relative to the use of military force. Senator Hagel certainly has 
those critically important qualifications and he is well qualified to 
lead the Department of Defense.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown.) The senior Senator from Rhode 
Island is recognized.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when Senator 
Lee concludes his remarks, I be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Utah is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Lee are printed in today's Record under ``Morning 
Business.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Rhode Island is 
recognized.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for the 
nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense. 
He comes to this job at an extraordinarily challenging time for the 
Department and for our Nation. Among the many issues he will confront, 
Senator Hagel will oversee the drawdown of our forces out of 
Afghanistan, the enhancement of our cyber defenses, and the management 
of various fiscal constraints on the defense budget. In fact, I cannot 
think of a more critical juncture of national security issues, budget 
issues, and technology issues, all coming together, facing the next 
Secretary of Defense.
  I have known Chuck for many years, and I know he is particularly 
well-suited to tackle these challenges. Chuck was born and raised in 
Nebraska, the oldest of four sons of a World War II veteran. Public 
service, military service is in that family's core. When his father 
died suddenly at the age of 39, Chuck quickly shouldered the 
responsibility of helping his mother raise his brothers. And when our 
Nation was in the midst of a bitter and divisive fight in Vietnam, he 
volunteered to fight, serving alongside his brother Tom. This was an 
era when there were many people who were looking for ways through 
deferments to avoid service, to avoid wearing the uniform of the United 
States. He was unusual in that he not only sought service, but he 
sought service in Vietnam alongside his brother.
  He rose to be an infantry sergeant, and both he and his brother were 
wounded twice, with each saving the other's life. In that experience as 
a combat infantryman, he knows, perhaps better than anyone who has been 
nominated for this office, the ultimate cost of our policies that are 
made here in Washington.
  When he returned home, Chuck used the GI bill to attend the 
University of Nebraska in Omaha, and after graduating from there, he 
went to Washington to work for a freshman Congressman from his home 
State.
  In 1980 President Reagan, recognizing his skill, his talent, his 
patriotism, and his devotion to the country, nominated him to be Deputy 
Administrator of the Veterans Administration. He ultimately left that 
post on a matter of principle. He thought there was inadequate support 
from that department for veterans suffering from exposure to Agent 
Orange. At that time, the effects of Agent Orange were being dismissed 
by some as nonconsequential, as something that was just a made-up 
malady by these veterans.
  Chuck knew differently, and later the science would prove him right. 
He continued to fight as he left the Veterans Administration, helping 
to ensure that these veterans who were physically affected by their 
service in Vietnam received compensation as the victims of Agent 
Orange.
  In that tenure as the Deputy Administrator of the Veterans 
Administration, he had the responsibility of running a large Federal 
department. So he is now bringing not only his service as a common 
infantryman but his service running a large department devoted to the 
veterans of these United States. That will serve him well as Secretary 
of Defense. Again, it makes him singularly if not uniquely qualified.
  But it doesn't stop there because he has extraordinary experience in 
the private sector. In the mid-1980s he cofounded Vanguard Cellular 
Systems, which became one of the largest independent cellular systems 
in the country. Again, someone from modest means with great 
imagination, after serving his country both as a soldier and as an 
administrator under the Reagan administration, went back and started a 
business and made it successful--so successful that he was able to 
devote himself to other public activities.
  He served as deputy commissioner general of the United States for the 
1982 World's Fair. He was president and chief executive officer of the 
USO, the agency devoted to helping servicemembers and their families. 
Again, his commitment to the American soldier, sailor, airman, and 
marine has been consistent, constant, and unrelenting.
  Then he became chief operating officer of the 1990 Economic Summit of 
Industrialized Nations--the G7 summit--in Houston, the president of an 
investment bank, and he was on the board of some of the world's largest 
companies.
  So you already have at this juncture a soldier, a successful 
entrepreneur, and a successful Federal administrator.
  Then in 1996 he came to the Senate to represent the people of 
Nebraska. He was the first Republican Senator from

[[Page 1293]]

Nebraska in a generation. We came here together. He came with all of 
these skills, and he added more skills, understanding the political 
process from the inside and from the outside that helped shaped 
national security policy, the budgets and the policies of the 
Department of Defense and every other Federal agency.
  During his time in the Senate as a member of the Senate Foreign 
Relations and Intelligence Committees, he championed national security 
policies with the goal of ensuring that our military remains the 
strongest in the world. Senator Hagel believes in working closely with 
our allies and partners and that, in his words, ``a nation must 
strategically employ all instruments of its power--diplomatic, 
military, economic--to defend its interests.'' So he brings a broad, 
comprehensive approach to national security, which is essential for our 
next Secretary of Defense because so many of the national security 
challenges we face are not simply military; they are diplomatic, they 
are economic, and they are environmental. They require the kind of 
broad-ranging approach that he takes to national security policy.
  As he stated during his nomination hearing 2 weeks ago, he has one 
fundamental question he has asked himself on every vote he took while 
serving in the Senate: Is the policy worthy of the men and women we 
were sending into battle and surely to their deaths? Is this going to 
be worth the sacrifice, because there will be sacrifices.
  It is one thing to study the art of war in lecture halls and to speak 
profoundly as a pundit. It is something else to be in the mud, under 
fire, seeing others fall. I have not had that experience. I served 12 
years in the U.S. Army, but very few people, very few people in this 
Chamber, very few people who would be considered for Secretary of 
Defense, have been under fire, have seen comrades fall, know that 
ultimately what we do here is borne by what those brave young Americans 
do across the globe. He knows it intellectually and viscerally. I know 
he will bring that perspective, that concern for our men and women in 
uniform, to every decision before him as Secretary of Defense.
  In this role, he will continue to focus our efforts on fighting 
terrorism in Afghanistan and throughout that region. We are facing a 
crucial turning point. In his State of the Union Address last night, 
the President announced his plan to further reduce our force levels in 
Afghanistan next year as the Afghan National Security Forces will take 
full responsibility for securing their nation. I think Senator Hagel is 
very well positioned to carry out this policy, to ensure it is done 
effectively, to ensure that our forces are protected and that we are 
able to help enable the Afghan forces to carry the burden to defend 
their country and provide stability.
  Senator Hagel will also lead the Department in preparing for emerging 
threats to our national security, such as attacks on our cyber 
infrastructure. We are at a critical point in our history, perhaps akin 
to the 1920s when air power first began to emerge as a credible 
military dimension, then later as space became a possible military 
dimension. Cyber is now a new dimension in warfare.
  We are at a similar juncture to the one when some of our colleagues 
in the 1920s were wondering how we use these contraptions that fly 
around the sky. But in a short period of time, air power made a 
profound difference on the world. The attack on Pearl Harbor was 
launched by aircraft from aircraft carriers, not by the bombardment of 
battleships and not by the landing of military forces. You can see the 
effect it had not only through World War II but in every conflict to 
today.
  We are at another critical juncture, and that is with respect to 
cyber security. How will we defend ourselves? What policies will we 
adopt to use this new technology to protect the United States and our 
allies? It will require integration across our government. It will 
require thoughtful, conscious deliberation. I believe he is prepared to 
do that and will do that very well.
  I am pleased that President Obama has just issued an Executive order 
that will improve coordination and information sharing with our 
industry partners so we can better protect our Nation's critical 
infrastructure, but there is more to be done, and I believe that in the 
context of a Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel can do it.
  Perhaps most challenging of all, Senator Hagel will lead the 
Department in a time of great fiscal constraints and uncertainty. As 
our Nation continues to find a path forward to rebound from the 
economic challenges of the last few years, there is an ever-growing 
pressure to reduce the size of the defense budget, which has nearly 
doubled over the past 10 years. But we must be very careful to do so in 
a way that eliminates unsustainable and unproductive costs without 
losing vital capabilities. That is a great challenge. As a result of 
the high operations tempo of our services, the multiple operations and 
deployments, all of our services are facing serious reset and 
recapitalization needs in terms of equipment and also significant 
efforts to help our military members and their families readjust, 
retrain, reequip, and prepare for a challenging future.
  Serious decisions will have to be made about the threats we face and 
as we anticipate new and emerging threats. Again, he is well prepared 
through his entire life of public service, military service, private 
service, administrative and business activity to confront this 
extraordinary range of challenges.
  A lot has been made about some comments Senator Hagel has made in the 
last years, going back 5, 7, 8, or more years. But I know, indeed, 
which was reflected in his testimony, that he did not seek out this 
position. President Obama chose to nominate Chuck Hagel because he knew 
of his record, of his service to our country. He knew of his incredible 
commitment to the men and women who wear the uniform of the United 
States. He knew about his experience in the private sector. He knew 
about his experience as a governmental leader. He knew there was an 
ability to rely upon his judgments, Senator Hagel's judgments, with 
confidence in times of crisis. I expect that the President of the 
United States is not going to turn to Chuck Hagel, particularly among 
crises, and ask him if can he quote verbatim what he said 10 years ago. 
He is going to say: What are my options? What is your advice? You know 
about war better than anyone. You know about military policy. You know 
about international security. You know about the interaction of 
diplomacy, economics, and environmental policy. Give me your judgment. 
I have to make a decision.
  I believe, reflecting what the Senator, my chairman, Carl Levin, has 
said, that in this difficult moment, the President of the United States 
needs a Secretary of Defense to provide that kind of perspective, and 
the men and women of the Department of Defense have to have the ability 
to have their voice heard decisively and definitively in those serious 
discussions, particularly about the deployment of military force.
  As I said, I am extremely confident he can do this. Let me also say I 
am impressed with those who have served our country in diplomatic and 
military roles who have endorsed Chuck Hagel strongly and 
enthusiastically. These endorsements are from men and women who have 
served in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Among them 
are Bob Gates, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright, William Perry, Brent 
Scowcroft, Ryan Crocker, and Thomas Pickering. These men and women have 
devoted themselves to protecting the United States, and they have done 
it with extraordinary energy and effectiveness. This list of 
Secretaries of Defense will rank as some of the best we have ever had, 
and they are absolutely confident Chuck Hagel can and should do this 
job.
  There are Ambassadors on this list who have handled delicate and 
difficult issues involving international law. There are several 
Ambassadors who have been Ambassadors to the State of Israel and 
strongly support Senator Hagel. All of these individuals know him. They 
also know as well--if not better than I and many of my colleagues--of 
the threats, dangers, and opportunities which face this country,

[[Page 1294]]

and they are strongly supporting Chuck Hagel. In fact, they have 
concluded in a letter that he is ``uniquely qualified to meet the 
challenges facing the Department of Defense and our men and women in 
uniform.''
  There has been a lot of discussion about Chuck Hagel's appreciation 
of the strong, important, and critical relationship between the United 
States and State of Israel. All I can say is I was so impressed by the 
comments of the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who was 
also the Ambassador to Washington, and who has met and dealt with 
Senator Hagel on a number of issues involving the relationship with the 
United States. The Deputy Foreign Minister said: ``I have met him many 
times, and he certainly regards Israel as a true and natural U.S. 
ally.''
  In another quote he said:

       I know Hagel personally. . . . I think he believes in the 
     relationship, in the natural partnership between Israel and 
     the United States.

  Here is an Israeli patriot who understands and has spent a great deal 
of time devoted to the relationship of the United States and Israel. In 
his own words, he concludes that Chuck Hagel regards Israel as a true 
and natural U.S. ally and will act accordingly. He is a dedicated 
patriot. He is an individual who has served this country in so many 
different ways. I support his nomination, and I urge my colleagues to 
do the same.
  Also, I think it is important to state that this nomination--as we 
have done with every Secretary of Defense for decades--deserves an up-
or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. People may choose to cast a 
vote against him for many reasons, and that is the prerogative of that 
Senator. I strongly believe, if we want to stay true to the traditions 
of this body and to the presumption that the President should be 
allowed to at least have his nominee voted up or down, then we have to 
bring this vote to the floor of the Senate for an up-or-down vote as 
quickly as possible.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The Senator from New 
Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a 
colloquy with my colleague, the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Sequestration

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, Senator Collins and I are here because 
we agree we must take action in this body and in this Congress to avoid 
sequestration. Sequestration is a term we have all been throwing 
around, and it refers to the automatic cuts that are scheduled to take 
effect on March 1. Those cuts were designed to force Congress to make a 
tough decision and to take comprehensive action on our debt and 
deficits.
  I think we all agree there is no question we need a comprehensive and 
balanced plan to put us on a more sustainable fiscal path. I think that 
plan should look at all areas of spending. It should look at domestic, 
mandatory, and defense as well as comprehensive tax reform. I think 
there are many areas of bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction, 
including controlling the long-term cost of health care.
  Unfortunately, Congress has missed several opportunities to enact a 
long-term plan to get our debt and deficits under control. That is why 
we are again facing a deadline at the end of this month to address 
those automatic cuts. As a result of that, we are starting to see the 
very real and negative consequences of our inaction. We are seeing it 
on our national security, and we are seeing it on our economy as 
businesses and agencies alike begin to prepare for the automatic cuts 
under sequestration.
  Last week, Senator Collins and I wrote to the leadership in the 
Senate urging bipartisan action on sequestration and the need to find a 
better approach. In our letter, we talked about the impacts we are 
starting to see in New Hampshire and Maine, including the threat to 
jobs, our national security, and to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, 
which is critical not only to New Hampshire and Maine but also to this 
country's national security. We called attention to the drastic effects 
we face for our economy, for our jobs, and for our national security.
  Today we are here to reiterate the importance of addressing 
sequestration and doing it now.
  I wish to thank the senior Senator from Maine, my colleague, for 
joining me to talk about this important issue, and I am looking forward 
to hearing her remarks. I know it is something she cares about as much 
as I do and as much as I think most of the Members of this Chamber do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, first, let me say, I am very pleased to 
join with my friend and colleague from New Hampshire to speak out 
against the indiscriminate meat-ax cuts known in Washington as 
sequestration that are scheduled to take effect in just 2 weeks' time. 
We simply must take action to avoid this self-inflicted harm to our 
economy and to our national security. But what I find inexplicable is a 
growing acceptance that sequestration is going to go into effect 
despite the fact that virtually everyone should concede that across-
the-board cuts where we don't set priorities do not make sense.
  There are good programs that deserve to be preserved, there are 
programs that have outlived their usefulness and should be eliminated, 
and then there are programs that could be cut and reduced. That is not 
the approach we are taking. We are not going through the budget in a 
careful way by identifying programs that could be eliminated or 
reduced, setting priorities, and making investments. No, we are 
allowing to go into effect across-the-board cuts that fall 
disproportionately on the Department of Defense.
  Indeed, we are already seeing the effects of these cuts on our 
military because each of the military services has begun planning for 
the likelihood of deep budget cuts. The Navy is preparing for a 
civilian hiring freeze and cutting workers at shipyards and base-
operated support facilities.
  I wish to be clear exactly who these employees are. These are the 
nuclear engineers, the welders, the metal trades workers repairing 
submarines and ships at the Navy's four public shipyards, including the 
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in my home State of Maine, which employs half 
of its workforce from my colleague's State of New Hampshire. I know the 
senior Senator from New Hampshire shares the concern about this 
particular installation on the border we share. But, of course, the 
damage of sequestration extends far beyond just one installation or two 
States.
  Just this morning I was over at the Pentagon, and I took advantage of 
the opportunity to sit down with the Navy's top shipbuilding official 
to discuss what the impact of sequestration would be for our naval 
fleet. Well, one example we have already seen. The Navy will keep the 
USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, in port rather 
than repairing and deploying it. Across the fleet, the Navy is being 
forced to reduce deployments, maintenance, and overhauls for critical 
repairs. When we look at the shipbuilding budget, it is evident that 
sequestration and the continuation of a partial-year funding 
resolution, known as the continuing resolution, would be absolutely 
devastating for our Navy, for shipbuilding, and for our skilled 
industrial base. That includes Bath Iron Works in Maine, which I am so 
proud of, which builds the best destroyers in the world. This has 
consequences not only for our workforce, but also for our national 
security.
  It is important to note Secretary Panetta has made clear that 
allowing these sweeping cuts to go into effect would be 
``devastating,'' in his words, and would badly damage the readiness of 
the U.S. military.
  The fact is defense has already taken a huge reduction in future 
spending. The defense budget has been slated to be cut by $460 billion 
over 10 years, and that is before sequestration. When this number is 
added to the defense cuts scheduled to begin on March 1, we are

[[Page 1295]]

looking at an enormous impact on our national security.
  Now, it is important to recognize we are not saying the national debt 
is not a problem. Certainly, when we have a $16.4 trillion debt, that 
is not sustainable, and the national debt is a security concern in its 
own right. Just last year, in 2012, the Federal Government spent $223 
billion in interest payments alone. That means we are spending more on 
interest on the national debt each month than we spent in an entire 
year on naval shipbuilding and the Coast Guard budget.
  Just think about that. The interest payment in one month exceeds the 
entire Coast Guard budget and the entire budget for shipbuilding in the 
Navy. The estimates are that by the middle of this decade--not some 
distant year--our interest payments to China, our largest foreign 
creditor at $1.2 trillion, will be covering the entire cost of that 
Communist country's military. Think of the horrific irony of that. At 
the same time America is bound by treaties to defend our allies in Asia 
against Chinese aggression, the American taxpayers are bankrolling the 
threat through the interest payments we are paying to the Chinese.
  Neither the Senator from New Hampshire nor I am saying the Pentagon 
should be exempt from budget scrutiny or even future cuts, but the 
disproportionate impact that sequestration would have on our troops and 
on our national security is dangerous and it must be averted. The 
Department cannot continue to operate on a continuing resolution that 
increases costs, prevents long-term planning, and makes it impossible 
for the Department to function effectively.
  I yield to my colleague from New Hampshire to expand on some of these 
points. Then we will talk further about the impact.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maine for 
laying out what we are seeing in terms of the potential impact of those 
automatic cuts. The comments and the statistics the Senator from Maine 
had about China and what they are going to be able to do with the money 
we are paying is really eye-opening and scary.
  The Senator from Maine spoke about some of the impacts we are 
beginning to see at the ports of naval shipyards. As the Senator 
pointed out, it is something very important to both Maine and New 
Hampshire. It employs about 4,000 workers, almost evenly split between 
our two States. As a result of the sequester, starting March 1, one of 
their major projects, the repair of the USS Miami, which was damaged in 
a fire, is going to be halted immediately. Just stopped--16 days from 
now. The Navy is going to cut over 1,100 temporary civilian workers, 
mostly from shipyards such as Portsmouth. The needed maintenance and 
military construction will be postponed indefinitely. It is not just 
about those jobs at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard or at the shipyards 
across the country, but that has a ripple effect across our economy, 
and it affects the grocery stores and the restaurants and all of the 
small contractors and small businesses doing work at those shipyards.
  There will be ramifications for our national defense across the 
services. Yesterday, we had some harrowing testimony in front of the 
Armed Services Committee from all of the chiefs of the military 
outlining what they see coming as a result of the consequences of the 
sequester and the continuing resolution the Senator from Maine spoke 
about.
  DOD-wide--so across the Department--they expect to lay off a 
significant portion of the 46,000 temporary and term employees. All 
services and agencies will likely have to furlough most DOD civilian 
employees for up to 22 working days. Imagine that. That is a whole 
month of paychecks that those workers are not going to have to support 
their families, to be able to spend into the economy, and that is going 
to have a huge impact.
  It is possible that DOD might not have enough funds to pay for 
TRICARE, health care coverage for our veterans through the end of the 
fiscal year. As we saw on the front pages of the paper this week, the 
Department delayed the deployment of the USS Harry Truman, the carrier 
strike group that was headed to the Persian Gulf. If sequestration goes 
into full effect, the Navy will shrink by about 50 ships and at least 
two carrier groups.
  By the end of the year, the Navy, if we do nothing, will lose about 
350 workers a week or 1,400 a month from our civilian industrial base. 
That will have a huge impact in New Hampshire, as I know it will in 
Maine as well.
  So there are real, significant impacts, as the Senator from Maine 
pointed out, on the defense industry, on this country's national 
security, and on the domestic side of the budget. It is already 
starting to have ramifications on our economy and job growth. We saw in 
the last quarter of 2012 that our economy contracted for the first time 
since 2009, and much of that decline was due to sharp reductions in 
government spending in anticipation of the sequester coming into 
effect.
  We saw it in New Hampshire, in some of our businesses that are 
dependent on government contracts, particularly in the defense 
industry. So our failure to act is not only irresponsible, but it is 
beginning to have a real impact in slowing down this economy.
  It is simply unacceptable that we are not addressing this issue. We 
need to act. If we let the sequester go into effect, we stand to lose, 
according to the Congressional Budget Office, up to 1.4 million jobs. A 
recent forecast from Macroeconomic Advisers suggests that sequestration 
would reduce our gross domestic product by .7 percentage points this 
year.
  We can't risk putting our economic recovery in jeopardy with these 
indiscriminate cuts. They are going to have an impact on research and 
education vital to our ability to grow this economy and remain 
competitive.
  The National Institutes of Health would face a $2.5 billion cut. They 
would have to halt or curtail scientific research, including needed 
research in cancer and childhood diseases. The Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention would see a $464 million cut. States and local 
communities would lose billions of Federal education funding for title 
I, for special education grants, and for other programs.
  As many as 100,000 children will lose their places in Head Start, 
25,000 teachers could lose their jobs, and we will see those impacts 
immediately in Maine and in New Hampshire.
  I wish to turn back to the Senator from Maine to share what she is 
seeing in Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, first I wish to commend the Senator from 
New Hampshire for broadening the debate and reminding all of us of the 
macroeconomic impact, as well as the impact on our two States.
  The estimate is that Maine's defense industry--which includes not 
just the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Bath Iron Works, and our Pratt & 
Whitney plant, but a lot of smaller contractors and suppliers--could 
lose as many as 4,000 jobs as a result of sequestration. Think about 
that. That means, as the Senator from New Hampshire pointed out, these 
are people who are supporting their families and who are supporting 
other businesses in the community. The impact, the ripple effect, is 
just devastating.
  That is why it does not surprise me that the Congressional Budget 
Office has pointed to sequestration as the primary cause for the slow 
growth we have seen already, and CBO projects as well; that our economy 
would grow at a faster rate--at 2 percent--if we averted sequestration. 
These aren't meaningless numbers. They affect real people. The 
estimates are that we would lose between 1.4 million and 2 million jobs 
if this is allowed to go into effect nationwide.
  It is also a failure on the part of Washington to make decisions. If 
we are going to allow these mindless, indiscriminate cuts to go into 
effect, why are we here? We might as well have computers or robots 
making decisions for us. Our job is to do the hard, painful work of 
setting priorities and making decisions. That is why I am so frustrated 
by the approach we appear to be on the verge of taking.
  The Senator from New Hampshire makes a very important point. While

[[Page 1296]]

the Department of Defense would take a disproportionate impact from 
sequestration, and I am extremely concerned about that, there are other 
important programs that would be affected as well. The superintendents 
groups have met with me and talked about what it would mean for 
schoolchildren in Maine if halfway through the school year--more than 
halfway through the school year--all of a sudden they get a reduction 
in title I money that goes to low-income schools, to special education 
grants, to other important programs such as Head Start, and the TRIO 
Program, which helps low-income and first-generation students attend 
and excel in college.
  Think about the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, biomedical 
research that is so critical, cuts in the FAA workforce that could 
reduce air traffic control, disrupting air traffic during the busy 
summer months.
  The list goes on and on: essential education, health care, research, 
transportation programs that deserve support that do not deserve to all 
be treated the same.
  Again, I want to emphasize that we recognize spending must be cut and 
the debt, at $16.4 trillion, is way out of control. That amounts to 
something like $52,000 for each man, woman, and child in this country.
  We are committed to seeking pragmatic solutions through compromise 
and to avoiding this devastation of our economy and our national 
security. We recognize we have to look at all areas of spending and 
that we need to overhaul our Tax Code and make it more pro-growth, 
simpler, and fairer. If ever there were a moment when Members of 
Congress and the President should put aside their politics for the 
greater good of the Nation, now is the time.
  So I, for one, want to thank the Senator from New Hampshire for 
caring so much about this issue. We have agreed to work together--and 
continue to work together--to address this. These automatic cuts were 
never supposed to take effect. I remember being told: Do not worry. It 
is never going to happen. It is too unpalatable. It will just never 
occur.
  Well, they were supposed to force us to make the difficult decisions 
necessary to put our economy on a sound footing and to deal with our 
unsustainable debt. Our Nation's leaders--the President, Democrats and 
Republicans alike--have denounced sequestration for the most part, and 
yet here we are.
  So I hope we can work together to avoid this fiscal cliff which will 
have such damaging effects for the people of this Nation.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Collins very much for 
her kind words. I know we both care a great deal about this situation 
we are in, as I think most of the Members of the body do. What is so 
frustrating is that it is avoidable. This is not something that has to 
happen because we are facing a crisis. This is happening because of 
what we have done in our actions. So we can undo these actions, as the 
Senator points out.
  I share the Senator's belief that we need a comprehensive solution. 
We have to look at all aspects of the budget. We need to look at 
domestic, defense spending, mandatory programs, and we need to look at 
revenues. Comprehensive tax reform--that is a way we can address that.
  There are areas of bipartisan agreement that we ought to be able to 
take action on right away. We have had a number of GAO reports that 
make recommendations on duplicative programs within government. We are 
already working to control the long-term costs of health care, to close 
tax loopholes, and on defense spending, we all know there are still 
reforms that can be done, as the Senator pointed out. We can get better 
physical controls. We can end some of the fraud and abuse in 
contracting. That is just the beginning of a list that, I am sure, if 
we all dedicated ourselves to coming up with a compromise on how we 
avoid the sequester, we could do.
  We should not delay because our failure to resolve this issue is 
having damaging effects on our economy, and it is only going to get 
worse if we do not find the solution.
  So, again, I thank Senator Collins for her commitment to address this 
challenge we face, for her willingness to come down and engage with me, 
and for us to work together, along with our colleagues, to try to get a 
resolution so we do not have these devastating cuts going into effect.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator would yield for one 
moment, without losing his right to the floor.
  Mr. INHOFE. Yes, I will.
  Mr. LEVIN. Before the Senators from New Hampshire and Maine leave the 
floor, I just want to commend them for their statements, for their 
conversation. It is so critically important we avoid sequester. The 
more Senators and the more Members of the House who look for ways on a 
bipartisan basis to avoid it, the better. We only have 2 weeks left to 
go. With the kind of energy and creativity that these two Senators 
bring to this body, it makes me a little bit more hopeful that we are 
going to be able to avoid this unbelievably bad outcome.
  So I just want to thank both Senators and thank my friend from 
Oklahoma for yielding for a moment.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me, first of all, respond to the 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee. I agree. We have talked about 
the anguish.
  We had a hearing yesterday where the service chiefs discussed the 
disaster facing our armed forces if we go through sequestration. I do 
not think most Members of this body fully understand what it means, not 
just to the defense of our country as a whole, but to each of the 
individual States.
  In my State of Oklahoma, I am very concerned about Tinker Air Force 
Base and its 16,000 civilian employees. What is going to happen there?
  Anyway, let me just wind up this part by saying I have been ranked as 
the most conservative Member for many years. But I have always said: I 
am a big supporter of using our resources in two areas: One is national 
defense and the other is transportation and infrastructure.
  A short while ago, the majority leader was kind enough to call my 
office and tell me I would be objecting to the consideration of the 
nomination of former Senator Hagel to be Secretary of Defense.
  However, this is not a filibuster. I keep getting stopped by people 
out in the hall: Oh, we are going to filibuster. Who is going to 
filibuster?
  What we are doing is not a filibuster. We are seeking a 60 vote 
threshold for a controversial nomination. If the majority really wanted 
to move forward quickly, all they have to do is agree to a 60-vote 
margin, like they did with the Sebelius and Bryson nominations.
  In addition, as ranking member of the Senate Armed Services 
Committee, I am obligated to assist the members of the committee.
  First of all, the vote in the committee was a 100-percent partisan 
vote. Every Republican there voted against moving the Hagel nomination 
out of committee. Well, there has to be a reason for that.
  One of the reasons--the major reason, I would say--and if you do not 
believe this, go back and look at the tape of the meeting yesterday 
where many of our members said: Why is it we are rushing to confirm 
Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense when he has not given us the 
information we have requested? One such Member is the junior Senator 
from Texas, who is in the Chamber with me right now.
  But let me first clarify there is nothing unusual about requesting a 
60-vote threshold. This happens all the time. I can remember when the 
majority leader agreed to a 60-vote threshold in the 2009 nomination of 
Kathleen Sebelius. She was confirmed.
  There is nothing unusual about a 60-vote threshold.
  John Bryson was nominated to be the Secretary of Commerce. Several of 
us had concerns about this nomination. Ultimately, he was confirmed. 
But once again the entire Senate agreed to

[[Page 1297]]

a confirmation vote by a 60-vote margin.
  I can remember when the majority leader--let me say this about the 
majority leader. He has been exceptionally good to me on things I have 
been involved in. I have two major bills that were my bills. One was in 
concert with Barbara Boxer--the highway bill. Frankly, I could not have 
gotten it passed without them. Another was my pilots' bill of rights. I 
could not get a hearing on it in committee. I tried for a year. He 
stepped in and helped me. I have said in national publications I could 
not have gotten it passed without Leader Harry Reid. So we have a very 
good relationship, and one which will continue.
  However, Senator Reid, on numerous occasions, was concerned about 
Republican nominations. During the Bush Presidency, Stephen Johnson--
who, incidentally, was a Democrat--was nominated to be EPA 
Administrator. I thought he would be good Administrator. There were 
several Democrats who thought he would not be good Administrator. So 
Harry Reid did what he is supposed to do, and he interceded on behalf 
of the Democrats who opposed him. As result, cloture was filed and, 
therefore, the nomination needed 60 votes to proceed. Well, the 
Administrator got 61 votes.
  Another example was Dirk Kempthorne. He was nominated to be Secretary 
of the Interior. My colleagues will remember he is a former Senator 
from Idaho. Some objected to his confirmation. Of course, this was 
during the Bush administration. Senator Kempthorne was nominated, and 
he went ahead and was confirmed. It was a 60-vote margin. There is 
nothing unusual about this.
  Getting back to Stephen Johnson, this is even more analogous to what 
we have right now because he was a Democrat who was nominated by a 
Republican President. Unfortunately, once again we were forced by the 
Democrats to have a cloture vote which requires 60 votes.
  Stephen Johnson was a Democrat. So here we had the Republicans 
wanting Stephen Johnson and the Democrats not wanting Stephen Johnson. 
It is very analogous to what we have today. Today, we have former 
Senator Chuck Hagel, who is a Republican.
  But in this case, we have a situation where cloture has been filed by 
the majority leader. I have no objection to voting. I do not want to 
wait. I do not want to string this out. I have other places to go other 
than hanging around here. I would vote tonight if we could just get the 
information that has been requested by the Republican members of the 
Senate Armed Services Committee.
  Keep in mind, the Hagel nomination was reported out of committee by a 
100-percent partisan vote. All Republicans voted against sending him 
out. Why did they do it? They did it because we have not gotten the 
information we want.
  I have a letter. This is a letter that is signed by 25 Republicans 
stating that we have not received the information necessary for a 
proper vetting of the Hagel nomination.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                 Washington, DC, February 6, 2013.
     The Hon. Chuck Hagel,
     Distinguished Professor in the Practice of National 
         Government, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, 
         Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Hagel, On January 29, two days before your 
     confirmation hearing, you received a request, via email, from 
     several Senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee for 
     additional information necessary to fairly assess your 
     nomination to be Secretary of Defense. The written copy of 
     the letter (delivered the next day) was signed by six 
     Senators, including the Ranking Member of the Committee. The 
     letter requested that you respond to the request before the 
     hearing, so that you could then answer questions concerning 
     your responses.
       You declined to respond to the request for additional 
     financial disclosure.
       At the hearing, you were told by Members of the Committee 
     that a response to our request for information would be 
     necessary before the Committee could vote on your nomination. 
     The Chairman of the Committee expressly asked you to submit 
     your response by Monday, February 4.
       Monday came and went, and you still did not respond.
       At the end of the day on Tuesday, February 5, you submitted 
     a short ``response'' to our request. In that response, you 
     explicitly declined to answer many of the questions asked of 
     you.
       You were asked to disclose all compensation over $5,000 
     that you have received over the past five years. You declined 
     to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--the Atlantic Council has received foreign funding in 
     the past five years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--McCarthy Capital has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Corsair Capital has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Wolfensohn and Company has received foreign funding 
     in the past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--M.I.C. Industries has received foreign funding in the 
     past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--the National Interest Security Company has received 
     foreign funding in the ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Elite Training and Security, LLC has received foreign 
     funding in the past ten years. You declined to do so.
       You were asked to disclose if--and to what specific 
     extent--Kaseman, LLC has received foreign funding in the past 
     ten years. You declined to do so.
       Your own financial records are entirely within your own 
     control, and you have flatly refused to comply with the 
     Committee Members' request for supplemental information.
       The records from the other firms--more than one of which, 
     you have disclosed, paid you $100,000 or more--are highly 
     relevant to the proper consideration of your nomination. Your 
     letter discloses no affirmative efforts on your part to 
     obtain the needed disclosure, and your lack of effort to 
     provide a substantive response on this issue is deeply 
     troubling.
       If it is the case that you personally have received 
     substantial financial remuneration--either directly or 
     indirectly--from foreign governments, sovereign wealth funds, 
     lobbyists, corporations, or individuals, that information is 
     at the very minimum relevant to this Committee's assessment 
     of your nomination. Such remuneration may be entirely 
     appropriate, but that determination cannot be made without 
     disclosure.
       If you have not received remuneration--directly or 
     indirectly--from foreign sources, then proper disclosure will 
     easily demonstrate that fact.
       Your refusal to respond to this reasonable request suggests 
     either a lack of respect for the Senate's responsibility to 
     advise and consent or that you are for some reason unwilling 
     to allow this financial disclosure to come to light.
       This Committee, and the American people, have a right to 
     know if a nominee for Secretary of Defense has received 
     compensation, directly or indirectly, from foreign sources. 
     Until the Committee receives full and complete answers, it 
     cannot in good faith determine whether you should be 
     confirmed as Secretary of Defense.
       Therefore, in the judgment of the undersigned, a Committee 
     vote on your nomination should not occur unless and until you 
     provide the requested information.
           Sincerely,
       (Signed by 26 Senators).

  Mr. INHOFE. This letter is signed by several Senators, but it was 
promoted, more than by anyone else, by the Senator from Texas. The 
Senator has repeatedly requested this information. I have personally 
heard Senator Cruz request this information, just yesterday, and on 
several previous occasions.
  In a previous letter, he said: We express our concern--several 
Senators also signed this letter--on the unnecessary rush to force 
through a vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination before he has been able to 
respond adequately to multiple requests from members of the Armed 
Services Committee for additional information.
  I'm reading now from the letter: Those requests have included a 
request to Chuck Hagel for the disclosure of his personal compensation 
he has received over the past 5 years.
  We are talking about Chuck Hagel.
  This is information which he controls. He can provide this 
information. It is there.
  The letter also requests the disclosure of foreign funds he may have 
received indirectly. This is important because some have raised 
questions of a potential conflict of interest.

[[Page 1298]]

  Why does he not want to disclose this? Somehow he would like to be 
confirmed without disclosing this information.
  As Senators we have a responsibility here. I do not care if you are a 
Democrat or Republican. If a member of the Armed Services Committee 
requests this information and the information is available and he is 
able to obtain it and does not provide it, we have a process problem.
  Mr. President, my primary objection to Chuck Hagel's confirmation is 
for policy reasons. That is why I think he is not qualified for that 
job. Others do not agree with that. That is fine. But they have to 
agree on the process.
  In fact, I cannot remember--and I have been on the Armed Services 
Committee in both the House and Senate for 25 years. I do not remember 
one time when information that was requested, which was perfectly 
within the purview of the committee was not provided. This has not 
happened. This is unprecedented.
  I heard some people say: you are filibustering a Cabinet appointee. 
That is not what we are doing. What we are trying to prevent is an 
unprecedented event where committee members do not receive information 
which is important for Members to have in order to consider a 
nomination.
  So I will continue to read the letter.
  The letter includes a request for a complete list of his prior public 
speeches, notably, multiple additional speeches on controversial topics 
that have been made public by the press.
  For example, I understand FOX News is going to run a story tomorrow 
regarding some speeches made by former Senator Hagel. If so, these 
speeches would certainly give rise to a lot of interest because, I have 
been informed, we are talking about speeches which were made and paid 
for by foreign governments. I have also been told, some of these 
foreign governments may not be friendly to us.
  Therefore, I believe Senators are entitled to review this 
information. Are we entitled to that? Yes; we are entitled to that.
  So this letter includes a request for a complete list of his prior 
public speeches, notably, additional speeches on controversial topics 
that have been made public in the press, despite those speeches having 
been omitted from his own disclosure.
  I remember in the early stages of the confirmation process, requests 
were made of Senator Hagel about information we knew existed because 
the press had written about it in the past. Some may argue that 
Senators are not entitled to review these speeches. I disagree. A 
member of the Armed Services Committee has a responsibility to review 
that information.
  The letter also makes the critical request from the administration 
for additional information on their precise actions during and 
immediately following the tragic murder of four Americans in Benghazi, 
Libya on September 11, 2012.
  Regardless, if the administration has answered these questions, the 
Senate is entitled to review speeches that have been made by the person 
who is up for confirmation to be Secretary of Defense.
  I would say to the majority leader, the request for a 60 vote 
threshold is based on precedent. It is what the majority leader agreed 
to on the John Bryson and Kathleen Sebelius nominations. It is what he 
insisted upon when the Democrats forced cloture to be filed on the Dirk 
Kempthorne and Stephen Johnson nominations. There are several others. 
Michael Leavitt was one. John Bolton went through this twice. We all 
remember Miguel Estrada. We remember Robert Portman, now one of our 
fellow Senators.
  So there is nothing unusual about this. But there is a problem with 
the process we are entering now. That process is, we have made 
requests--I am talking about Members such as Senator Cruz from Texas 
and other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who have made 
perfectly reasonable requests for information. In this case, it is on 
speeches reportedly made to foreign audiences. However, these concerns 
can be clarified in a matter of minutes.
  That is why we should not rush. If this information is provided we 
could resolve this matter tonight. The information is out there. I have 
personally talked to Senator Cruz. He said: Look, if they will just 
give us that information we have been requesting now for weeks, we can 
have the vote tonight.
  That is our reasonable request. We are not talking about merits. We 
are not talking about substance. We are talking about a process. Never 
before in my memory has a Senate Armed Services member's reasonable 
request been denied before someone has come up for a confirmation. It 
is a simple request. It has been done on a regular basis. A 60-vote 
margin is not a filibuster. We are merely saying the Senate is entitled 
to this information. Hopefully, this will jar some of the information 
loose. Maybe we can get it now. I hope we do.
  I want to move this on and move it as rapidly as possible.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here again to talk about the 
effects of climate change on the health of our families and our 
communities. Just as we know that secondhand smoke and too much sun 
exposure are bad for human health, we know pollution and variations in 
climate conditions are as well.
  I wish to thank our chairman on the Environment and Public Works 
Committee, Mrs. Boxer, for the briefing she held today with a number of 
scientists, including one who spoke specifically about the human health 
effects we can see from climate change. Climate change is threatening 
to erode the improvements in air quality we have achieved through the 
Clean Air Act.
  EPA-enforced emissions reductions have led to a decline in the number 
and severity of bad air days in the United States. These are the days I 
know the Presiding Officer is familiar with because I am sure they 
happen in Connecticut as well as in Rhode Island, where the air quality 
is so poor that it is unhealthy for sensitive individuals: the elderly, 
infants, people with breathing difficulties to be outdoors. Even 
healthy people are urged to limit their activities when out-of-doors.
  In Rhode Island, about 12 percent of children and 11 percent of 
adults suffer from asthma. Both are higher than the national average. 
Our Rhode Island Public Transit Authority runs free buses on bad ozone 
days to try to keep car traffic down because these days are so 
dangerous to the public. Of course, the major air pollutant behind bad 
air days is ozone, commonly known as smog. Ground-level ozone or smog 
makes it difficult to breathe, causes coughing, inflames airways, 
aggravates asthma, emphysema and bronchitis and makes lungs more 
susceptible to infection.
  That all means asthma attacks, emergency room visits, 
hospitalizations, which, in turn, result in missed school and work and 
a burden not only of worry but also a burden on the economy. Smog, of 
course, forms more quickly during hot and sunny days. So as climate 
change drives more heat, it increases the number of warm days and the 
conditions for smog and for bad air days become more common.
  Climate change is also prolonging the allergy season. I am sure there 
are a number of people listening who suffer from hay fever in the late 
summer and early fall. Some people suffer from it most acutely. It is 
most often caused by ragweed pollen. Since 1995, ragweed season has 
increased across the country. It has increased by 13 days in Madison, 
WI. It has increased by 20

[[Page 1299]]

days in Minneapolis, MN. It has increased by almost 25 days in Fargo, 
ND. The further north you go, the greater the increase in the ragweed 
season. So for folks in Fargo, for instance, it is 25 more days of 
sniffling and sneezing and 25 more days that ragweed pollen might 
trigger a child's asthma attack.
  Not only does more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean warmer 
weather and therefore longer pollen seasons, it also means a higher 
pollen count. At 280 parts per million, which was the concentration of 
atmospheric carbon back in the year 1900, each ragweed plant would 
produce about 5 grams of pollen.
  At 370 parts per million, which is where we are now--year 2000 levels 
to be precise--pollen production more than doubles. It doubles again at 
72 parts per million, which is the concentration that is now projected 
for the year 2075. So as we work to improve air quality and to reduce 
respiratory illnesses and the allergic conditions that trigger 
respiratory distress, we need to fight the growing trigger, climate 
change.
  Warming oceans and lakes can also harm our health. Higher water 
surface temperature is associated with harmful blooms of various 
species of algae. These blooms are often referred to as ``red tide.'' 
They deplete oxygen, block sunlight, and they produce toxins. The 
toxins are very often captured by clams and oysters and other 
shellfish.
  When they are consumed, it can result in neurotoxic shellfish 
poisoning, which causes debilitating respiratory and gastrointestinal 
symptoms. A warming climate also is predicted to change the range of 
disease-spreading parasites, such as ticks and mosquitoes. With longer 
summers and shorter winters, we will face more exposure to these pests 
and to the diseases they can carry.
  We in New England and Connecticut and Rhode Island and Massachusetts, 
of course, are very familiar with lyme disease, which is a tick-borne 
illness that can have very grave and serious effects.
  Slow and steady warming is also causing sea levels to rise, which 
threatens coastal infrastructure and human safety as well. In South 
Kingstown, RI, Matunuck Beach Road is the only means of access to 
approximately 500 homes. That road also covers the public water main. 
For years, the sand erosion has eaten away at the beach. Now the road 
is immediately vulnerable to storms. Indeed it has been overwashed in 
recent storms. A breach in Matunuck Beach Road cuts off those 500 homes 
from emergency services. If it were damaging enough, it could cut off 
their water.
  Our water quality is also threatened. Many of Rhode Island's 
wastewater treatment plants are in low-lying areas and flood zones near 
the coast. It is the story in many other States. In California, for 
example, the rising sea level has put 29 wastewater treatment plants, 
responsible for 530 million gallons of sewage processing every day, at 
increased risk for flooding.
  As we know, climate change loads the dice for more extreme weather: 
heat waves, droughts, storms, all serious threats to human health and 
safety. Climate change has led to an increase in the likelihood of 
severe heat waves. Extreme heat causes heat exhaustion. It can cause 
heat stroke. The need for air-conditioning in heat waves also strains 
the power infrastructure, which can cause electrical brownouts and 
blackouts. This hinders emergency services and exacerbates wildfires 
and drought. These are the kinds of conditions--from extreme heat--that 
led to literally tens of thousands of deaths in the record-setting 
Russian heat wave of 2010.
  Heavy rainfall can cause physical damage, flooding erosion, and 
sewage overflow. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 
118,000 sanitary sewer overflows occur annually from storms overwashing 
through combined sewer systems, overloading those systems, and being 
released directly into the open, releasing up to actually 860 billion 
gallons of untreated sewage and wastewater. In 2010, heavy rainfall and 
flooding caused millions of dollars in damage in spilled raw sewage in 
Warwick, RI, my home State. The flood led to the temporary shutdown of 
the local wastewater treatment facility. These overflows, like the one 
in Warwick, can result in beach closures, shellfish bed closures, 
contamination of drinking water supplies, and other environmental and 
public health problems.
  Extreme rainfall, meaning both way too little and way too much 
rainfall, promotes waterborne outbreaks of disease. In the northeast 
United States, heavy rainfall has increased by 74 percent since my 
childhood in the 1950s.
  As we have seen with Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Irene, and Hurricane 
Katrina, storms can very quickly affect millions of people and require 
tens of billions of dollars to clean up. The threat gets worse as sea-
level rise allows storm surges to reach farther inland and create more 
damage than just a few decades ago. Much of the east coast was fearful 
of flooding during Superstorm Sandy last year, including, of course, 
southern Rhode Island. Because of erosion and sea-level rise, the storm 
surges on our shores can reach homes that were originally built 
hundreds of feet from the coastline.
  I had the experience of standing with a man who had a childhood home 
that had been through at least three generations of his family. He was 
now actually older than me, and that childhood home--which had stood 
well back from the beach--was canting toward the sea and tumbling into 
the ocean. The ocean had claimed his home of multiple generations as 
its victim.
  This map shows by ZIP code where the 800,000 people displaced by 
Hurricane Katrina sought refuge after that terrible storm. Hundreds of 
thousands of people were strewn across every corner of the country. 
Hundreds of thousands of lives were disrupted as a result.
  Thankfully, not everybody is sleepwalking through these alarming 
realities. In 2010, Rhode Island created our Climate Change Commission, 
which has identified risks to key infrastructure and is analyzing data 
from events such as Hurricane Sandy and the 2010 flood. Other States 
have formed similar commissions.
  I brought last night to our President's State of the Union Address 
Grover Fugate, who is executive director of our Coastal Resources 
Management Council, which has to look at and address every day and plan 
for the effects of our rising sea level, increased storm activity, and 
the risk that that portends to the shores of our ocean State.
  For the past 3 years, Rhode Island has also been part of a regional 
greenhouse gas initiative nicknamed ReGGie, along with our neighbors in 
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 
New York, and Vermont. Our region caps carbon emissions and sells 
permits to emit greenhouses gases to powerplants. This has created 
economic incentives for both the States and our utilities to invest in 
energy efficiency and in renewable energy development. And consumers 
have reaped the benefit of lower prices. In 2012, regional emissions 
were 45 percent below the annual cap, so just last week the State 
announced an agreement to cap future emissions at the 2012 rate.
  I am proud of the work done in my State, and I know the Presiding 
Officer's home State of Connecticut is working equally hard on this 
issue. We are working to both slow climate change and to prepare for 
what are now its inevitable effects. But sadly, when it comes to this 
particular threat to our national security and our prosperity, Congress 
is asleep. It is time for us to wake up. The health and safety of 
Americans and of people all over the world is at risk. We must awaken 
to what is happening in the world around us and to the fact that the 
carbon pollution we are emitting is causing it. This is our 
responsibility. This is our generation's responsibility. It is, indeed, 
our duty. It is time for us to wake up.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page 1300]]


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

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