[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16632-16642]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  NOMINATION OF ELLEN DUDLEY WILLIAMS TO BE DIRECTOR OF THE ADVANCED 
         RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY--ENERGY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
  The bill clerk read the nomination of Ellen Dudley Williams, of 
Maryland, to be Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency--
Energy, Department of Energy.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to give my 
remarks while seated at my desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as 
in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. For hours and hours.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Farewell to the Senate

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I come today with a spirit of 
reflection and optimism about our future. I am also compelled towards 
an honest assessment of where we are as a body--of the promise of what 
we can achieve when we don't shy away from compromise and what we can't 
achieve when we refuse to compromise.
  I also have very much on my mind that the job of public service is 
very hard work, and it is an extremely noble and honorable calling. 
Here in the U.S. Senate we have the unique ability and responsibility 
to do very big things: ignite innovation in our schools and industries, 
grow and protect a healthy country, foster global change borne from 
policies that lead the globe. At the same time, we have the opportunity 
to touch individual lives with case management. One on one, with 
casework, we often reach people in their darkest hour.
  I love the Senate. I love the Senate. I love the intensity of the 
work, the gravity of the issues, and I love fighting for West 
Virginians here. I learned to love this fight, as many of you know, as 
a 27-year-old VISTA worker in the tiny coal community of Emmons, WV. It 
was a place that set my moral compass and gave me direction, where 
everything in my real life actually began. It is where I learned how 
little I knew about the problems people faced there and in other places 
in the country, how little I knew, and what a humbling experience that 
was for me.
  My time there was transformative. It explains every policy I have 
pursued and every vote I have cast. It was where my beliefs were bolted 
down and where my passions met my principles. Emmons was where I came 
to understand that out of our everyday struggles we can enlarge 
ourselves. We can grow greater. Truly making a difference couldn't be 
an afterthought. It never could. Rather, it requires a singular focus 
and relentless effort. It would be hard, but the work mattered. That is 
the deal here.
  Important undertakings can't be halfhearted. You have to commit your 
whole self--almost like pushing a heavy rock uphill. With both of your 
hands you push, because if you let up for a split second with either 
hand, you and the rock go tumbling backwards into the abyss. There is 
always so much at stake.
  Even today in West Virginia too many are struggling. They are 
fighting to survive. I called them hardworking when I really should say 
hard-surviving, but they are hardworking and trying to survive. They 
are wary of the future. They are scared of their possibilities. 
Sometimes they are afraid of themselves, which is partly a tradition 
which says that change is bad, that strangers are bad. I was bad for 
quite a long time. But that is the way people are. They don't really 
want to change. So change comes slowly. We just simply fight twice as 
hard, and nothing stops us.
  There is vast dignity and vast honor in helping people. You cannot 
let go of it. I believe genuinely in the ability of government to do 
good, to serve, and to right injustices. This is why the Senate must be 
a place in which we embrace commitment to be deliberative, passionate, 
and unrelenting. But it must be a place in which we are driven only by 
the duty and trust bestowed upon us by the people who put us here. This 
is where everything else should be put aside--boxed out, as it were.
  Yes, politics led us here. But this is where we shed the campaign--or 
should--and embrace our opportunities to lead, to listen, to dig in, to 
bridge differences, to govern, and to truly make a difference. At our 
core we must be drawn to the hard, all-consuming policy work that lives 
in briefings, hearing rooms, and roundtables back in our States. Yet 
our North Star must always be the real needs of the people we serve.
  So policy to me starts with listening. It is seeing the faces of our 
constituents--not just thinking of a policy in terms of a policy, but a 
policy in terms of the people whom it would affect. You see your 
constituents, you hear them out, and you understand their needs and 
their problems. You get to know them very well, especially in a small 
State such as West Virginia. Listening to constituents and colleagues 
here alike is absolutely necessary. Good policy is born out of 
compromise. Compromise is not easy, but it can happen. If we truly 
listen to each other, it very well could.
  We separate our campaign selves from our public service selves. The 
cruelty of perpetual campaigns destroys our ability to fulfill our oath 
of office. It is hard to build a working relationship in this 
institution without an honest and open approach with our colleagues--
Republican or Democratic. But we must build that relationship because 
together we can do so much, and without it, we can do--as we have 
seen--nothing.
  Listening and compromise were key to the work of the National 
Commission on Children in the 1990s. I was the chair of that 
Commission, which included a bipartisan group of government officials 
and appointed experts in various fields from all backgrounds. There 
were many of us--32--and we went all over the country for 2 years.
  I can tell you that reaching consensus was tough, but we listened, we 
debated, and we came to trust. Even the most liberal and conservative 
among us knew that each of us had the best interests of our party. That 
was not in dispute.
  While meeting in Williamsburg, VA, which was where we had been 
meeting at the time, I had to leave suddenly for an important Senate 
vote on Iraq. I handed over the gavel to our most conservative 
Republican Member, someone in whom I had trust. That shocked people, 
but it helped on the consensus.
  In the end we were proud to vote 32 to 0 in support of the 
legislation that we put forward and our policy statement as a whole, 
and it included both policies. It included the creation of a new 
Republican child tax credit for the first time and a major expansion of 
the earned-income tax credit, which has lifted millions of American 
families out of poverty.
  It worked because we listened to one another, respected one another, 
and we wanted to come to an agreement. It was clear, it was obvious, 
and there it was--32 to 0. Unbelievable, but it happened.
  Is that possible these days? My answer is yes, and I believe that we 
can see that spirit again as we address the future of the bipartisan 
Children's Health Insurance Program--CHIP, the way it is known. It 
currently provides health care to 8.3 million children and pregnant 
women nationwide, and 40,000 of those are in West Virginia. CHIP is so 
important to me because it offers health care which is tailored to 
children; to wit, it has both mental and dental health care tailored to 
children. It is, in fact, better coverage than the Affordable Care Act 
provides children.
  From those early days at Vista, I have seen the devastating toll that 
lack of medical care can extract from a

[[Page 16633]]

child's well-being and their health, their self-esteem--particularly 
their self-esteem--and even their will to succeed.
  Many of you also know the names and faces of children who have gone 
without access to proper health care, and those are the ones we fight 
for. That is why CHIP has always been a bipartisan effort, driven by 
the needs of real kids and their families. Senators Grassley and Hatch 
were instrumental in its creation over a period of a couple years and 
long arguments, and they continue to be strong advocates.
  The bipartisanship program has opened doors for millions who 
desperately needed to get into a doctor's office and had never been 
able to do so and now are able to do so.
  But a warning--every door that CHIP opened will be closed unless we 
can agree to carry CHIP funding past mid-2015, and I don't know what 
the prospects for that are. All I know is that if they aren't done 
properly, those doors close; those kids had access to doctors, but they 
don't anymore. That is unconscionable to me. We have to look at the 
faces of those children in our own States and think about that. It is 
those individual faces that I remember.
  Remembering for whom we work is paramount. When any corporate CEO 
comes to my office, I show them a prized birthday gift to my four 
children--our four children--my wife is here--a picture of a 
hardworking coal miner whose face is honest but hurting and very proud. 
That picture means so much to me because it embodies the spirit of 
those whom I am here to serve, and silently reminds us of why we must 
work towards a common ground--why this is not about Democrats and 
Republicans, but it is about the people whom we are here to serve, 
bringing different viewpoints to what that means.
  Senator Mike Enzi and I are not on the same side of every vote--to 
put it mildly--but we are very, very good friends--a friendship that 
was made years ago when I was serving on the President's HOPE mission 
and he was the mayor of Gillette, WY, going slightly crazy trying to 
build houses for all the people moving in there through coal. He also 
had sideburns. I say that oftentimes--off the record.
  On a gray day in January 2006, West Virginia was frozen in disbelief 
when we learned that 12 trapped miners were killed in Sago Mine--a mine 
in the north central part of the State.
  In the days that followed, as we struggled to make sense of what had 
happened, Senator Enzi and Senator Isakson joined Senator Kennedy, 
Senator Manchin, and myself in West Virginia. The first two did not 
real merely visit--they came to understand. They came to learn. They 
came to share in the grief and to offer their support to the community, 
and you could tell that in their faces.
  Together, out of tragedy--and because they were members of the 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--we forged a 
compromise on mine safety legislation that brought about, frankly, the 
strongest safety improvements in a generation. It was huge for us. Only 
16 States mine coal, but we are one of them.
  To this day, Senator Isakson carries a picture of one of the Sago 
miners. It is not in the wallet that he is carrying today, but it is in 
the other wallet back in Atlanta. I don't care where it is, that 
picture is in his wallet every single day. We knew that, as public 
officials, compromising and really leading, men govern--which is why we 
were there.
  Answering the needs of our country is our responsibility, and we do 
the best when we work shoulder to shoulder. It was working shoulder to 
shoulder when we set our country on a path to future innovation.
  A few years ago, America's domination in our innovation--our 
inventions and creative problem-solving--was eroding, and we all knew 
it. We needed to act. We needed to reinvigorate our leadership in those 
areas and to keep our jobs and our future more secure.
  We answered that call with a bipartisan compromise that delivered the 
America COMPETES Reauthorization Act. I will never forget that. This 
legislation made historic investments in basic research, science, 
technology, engineering, and math education.
  Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who preceded John Thune on the commerce 
committee, Senator Alexander, and I sought unanimous consent to get the 
bill passed--because we thought we worked out the details pretty well--
and do it prior to the recess. Therefore, we had to do it by unanimous 
consent. But there were five objections holding the bill still.
  Instead of retreating to party corners and pointing fingers, we 
compromised right on that center aisle--right there next to Senator 
Collins. We wound it up and down, we added a little money and we took a 
little bit of money off. Mostly we took several billion dollars off. We 
removed a couple of programs that weren't absolutely necessary to 
satisfy Kay Bailey or Lamar Alexander. And we had ourselves a $44 
billion bill over 5 years on which we agreed. We didn't have to have a 
vote. Senator Hutchison and Senator Alexander tenaciously worked to 
clear the holds. It was absolutely beautiful. It was just beautiful--a 
$44 billion program to reinvigorate our Nation, cerebrally and 
productively. Together we passed a bill to revive our country's 
flagging global performance ranking and catapult us to success. 
Reaching moments like those requires persistence. It demands 
collaboration. It demands trust and compromise, and it is so worth it.
  I am driven by the process of creating policy. I love doing that. It 
is grinding, it is intense, it can be frustrating and sometimes 
heartbreaking--often heartbreaking. But when we accomplish something 
that is meaningful to the people who have entrusted us to represent 
them, there is no greater reward.
  We have to know who and what we must fight for in our work and in our 
own personal views. We have to know and understand those who will 
benefit and those who will lose. And we have to be ready for it to take 
a long time--much longer than we thought--sometimes 5 years, sometimes 
10 years. That makes no difference. You keep at it. You don't let go of 
it, because if you keep at it, somewhere along some combination of 
Senators is going to say, yeah, that is OK. And then we get ourselves a 
bill.
  Also we keep in our souls the faces of the people we try to help, the 
people in my case who were all too often left behind. The Senate must 
face serious social and policy issues from health care to cyber 
security, caring for veterans coming home, building up our 
infrastructure, making our economy work for everyone. These are our 
core responsibilities. I am proud that we have made some measure of 
progress. While we seem right now to be at an impasse, I know the 
Senate will rise to the position of addressing our issues and at some 
point in some way it will happen. As a governing body, we must not 
allow recent failures to take root, to mean too much to us. We must not 
be focused on episodic ``gotcha'' issues rather than working to address 
broader, more systemic problem solving. No one else is going to step in 
to do this if we don't.
  The truth was on full display a few weeks ago when the Senate failed 
to move forward on National Security Administration reforms necessary 
to uphold the mission of protecting our Nation. These are issues on 
which I have very strong views. I have taken very seriously my 14 years 
on the Intelligence Committee, as a member and as chairman, because the 
global threats we face increase daily as the world becomes more 
connected. We depend on the highly trained professionals at NSA to zero 
in on those threats. There are only 22 of them that make sort of final 
decisions. They are highly trained. They have taken the oath of office 
to protect our Nation.
  Now I don't think we have any excuse to outsource our intelligence 
work to telecommunications firms. I work on the Commerce Committee. I 
have seen what the telecommunications companies do when they can get 
away with it--you know, everything from cramming to--just all kinds of 
not very nice things. It is the job of government to address this 
issue. The private sector and the free market alone cannot solve

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those kinds of problems and should not. That is a government 
responsibility being carried out with great success.
  A lot of people say, oh, what if? But the fact is nobody has ever 
been able to show me somebody whose privacy has been influenced or 
broken into by the NSA. Good, hard-working people can be destroyed by 
circumstances beyond their control. It is our job to not let that 
happen. It is our job to help to give everyone a fair shot. It is much 
easier to say than to do, but that is our charge.
  Too many children come into a world where circumstances preclude the 
opportunities they should have. We cannot discount the many challenges 
our society still faces. It is unconscionable in a country like ours 
that people go without health care or go hungry or have no place to 
call home.
  When shareholders and the free market cannot or will not solve our 
problems, it is government's responsibility to step in every time. 
People can decry government all they want, but we are here for a 
reason. When private companies decide there isn't enough profit to 
provide Internet to rural areas, then we step in and we expand 
broadband, allowing the E-Rate to go farther and farther out. It now 
covers 97 percent of all schools in the country.
  Maybe the private sector decides they cannot make enough by insuring 
the sickest of our children. We must act. That is our core mission. It 
is who we are as an institution. It is who we must always be.
  We have worked to give children a fair shot through the E-Rate 
Program which introduces the most rural classrooms and the smallest 
libraries to the world through the Internet, access to a foreign 
language class or research, but it gives every child a key to unlock 
their potential. It doesn't mean they will, but it means they can.
  We know health care is fundamental to a fair shot as well. We cannot 
learn or keep a job if we are sick. But providing that care has not 
always been as profitable as some companies would like. So we make sure 
millions of Americans could have the dignity of access to health care 
under the Affordable Care Act.
  My friend Sam is one of the faces I will never forget. When he was 
battling childhood leukemia and hit his lifetime insurance cap--it is a 
technical term for a savage consequence--his parents' insurance 
companies walked away from this courageous little fighter. His parents, 
both schoolteachers, were left with heart-wrenching decisions such as 
getting divorced--which they considered--so Sam could qualify for 
Medicaid. Well, in the end it didn't matter; Sam lost his battle with 
cancer. But today under the Affordable Care Act we have made sure that 
no insurance companies can abandon someone like Sam when they need help 
the most. Health care reform will never take away the crushing agony of 
parents with sick kids. Heartbreaking situations like Sam's drove us to 
say no more, and we changed the law. Parents deserve to focus every bit 
of their energy fighting for their kids in every way, not fighting 
profit-obsessed insurance companies. So we did the right thing. We did 
the right thing.
  Government also did the right thing when I fought for what I thought 
my life depended on, because it did, to pass the Coal Act of 1992, long 
forgotten. We had to step in and stop some coal companies from walking 
away from benefits which they had promised by contract to retired coal 
miners and their widows--folks who were mostly in their seventies and 
eighties. Passing the Coal Act was enormously important to our country. 
It not only prevented in absolute terms a national coal strike in 1993, 
but it delivered on the promise of lifetime health benefits earned by 
200,000 retired coal miners and their widows. They would not have been 
taken care of if those companies had their way.
  Nor can we rely on the private sector alone to take care of our 
veterans. It is government's duty to provide the health care they 
earned. We do this through community-based clinics and improved 
services for PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and family support. It is 
expensive. Senator Rob Portman and I wanted to pass a bill which would 
cause the Department of Defense to give all people entering the 
military mental health screening--not when they came back from Iraq or 
Afghanistan or somewhere else, but before they went in, and then on an 
annual basis do that again to build a database, to make sure we knew 
that we could take care of them better when they came home.
  We rightly asked the government to take on some of society's most 
fundamental needs. What I found in Emmons was a community of genuinely 
strong and incredibly hard-working people who were essentially on their 
own trying to survive. The free market had not made sure that 
communities such as Emmons had good roads or any schools or any 
schoolbuses or any clean drinking water or safe jobs. But from my point 
of view they deserved all of those. They deserved to have their shot. 
Working together on the needs of places such as Emmons speaks to our 
core human connection and to an aspiration for the greater good.
  That is what drove me into public service. It was not something I 
could help. I just had to do it, to help people with everything that I 
have. Every individual in every community such as Emmons deserves to 
have public officials who will fight the big fight and the personal 
ones, the casework.
  Extending a hand on those personal challenges is incredibly 
meaningful work. Our constituents face these fights with Herculean 
courage but not always the resources to solve the problems in front of 
them. People like the 8-year-old who needed a bone marrow transplant, a 
procedure that in 1990 was considered experimental. Our office 
intervened. We helped that boy get that transplant and he still lives 
today. As a Senator, you take on those fights with the same vigor as 
any policy or ideological debate and you are equally proud when you win 
and you are equally hurt when you lose.
  When I came to West Virginia 50 years ago, I was searching for a 
clear purpose for my life's work. I wanted the work to be really hard, 
and what I got was an opportunity to work really hard along with a real 
and utterly spiritual sense of mission. This work demands and deserves 
nothing less than everything that we have to give.
  I will miss the Senate. Some days I don't want to leave, but it is 
time, which brings me to some profoundly important notes of gratitude.
  To my colleagues, I say thank you.
  I have mentioned some. I could mention so many. You are dedicated, 
you are brilliant, and you are public servants. I love you for putting 
up with what you have to, particularly the way elections are these 
days. I respect you for it so much. Thank you for fighting alongside 
me. Thank you for challenging me.
  To my staff, a Senator is really nothing without his staff or her 
staff, and there is not a more committed, talented, and deeply 
passionate staff in the United States Senate. To my staff, you live and 
you breathe your work everyday. You inspire me with your endless 
capacity for redressing injustice and fighting for people who need you 
and come to you in need. You never turned a single West Virginian away. 
I glory in my gratitude to you.
  To my family, who has sacrificed so much, I thank you. I have been 
selfish in my devotion to my work, and I have been vastly inept in 
balancing family and work. Public service is not encouraging of 
balance.
  Sharon, you are everything--an extraordinary mother, a remarkable 
businesswoman, and you are a public servant. You have been a visionary 
in public broadcasting. Our entire Nation is indebted to your efforts 
to educate and inform us. The impact you continue to make on public 
life is truly remarkable. Any achievement I am proud of I share with 
you eternally.
  (Applause, Senators rising)
  Our children--John, Valerie, Charles, and Justin--have all been very 
thoughtful and endlessly supportive in my absences. Our grandchildren 
bring me so much joy, and I really hope to see a lot more of them.
  To West Virginia, thank you for placing your faith in me--I know it 
was hard at first--and giving me the greatest reward: the chance to 
fight for

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meaningful and lasting opportunity for those who were too often 
forgotten but absolutely deserve the best.
  My fellow West Virginians, I am forever inspired by you, and I am 
forever transformed by you.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. There will be many remarks at the end of the year from 
Senators regarding Jay Rockefeller, but at this time I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                    ``Zero Dark Thirty'' IG Reports

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
``Zero Dark Thirty''--not the movie but a report on the movie. The 
report was supposed to tell us how the movie's producers obtained top-
secret information from the Federal Government, but the report never 
took us there.
  The Department of Defense inspector general stumbled and fell and 
lost sight of the goal and the need for independence. People were 
exposed to harm, the taxpayers' money got wasted, and alleged 
misconduct by top officials was shielded by a policy that may have been 
abused. Bureaucratic bungling caused confusion, turmoil, and dissent. 
For certain, the whole thing was a fiasco.
  The ``Zero Dark Thirty'' report was driven by the hemorrhage of leaks 
of highly classified information by senior administration officials 
after the Osama bin Laden raid. It was requested by the chairman of the 
House oversight committee, Congressman Peter King--a very good 
Congressman, very good on oversight.
  He read a column in the New York Times which indicated that Hollywood 
filmmakers ``received top-level access to the most classified mission 
in history.'' Congressman King was concerned that those disclosures 
could undermine our ability to successfully conduct covert operations 
in the future, so in August 2011 Congressman King asked the inspectors 
general of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of 
Defense to answer five simple questions. My focus during these remarks 
will be on the Department of Defense IG's investigation.
  I became involved, as you might expect, after whistleblowers 
contacted my office in December 2012 alleging that Acting and Deputy 
Inspector General Lynne Halbrooks was sitting on Congressman King's 
report. They alleged that she--Ms. Halbrooks--was suppressing the 
report to, No. 1, protect her boss, Secretary of Defense Panetta, and 
other senior officials from disciplinary action or prosecution, and No. 
2, to further her candidacy to be the next inspector general.
  Her nomination was vetted while the investigation was in progress. 
The convergence of those potential conflicts of interest grabbed my 
attention. They needed scrutiny. The independence of the Office of 
Inspector General could have been jeopardized. So my staff started 
digging. They interviewed key witnesses and examined documents provided 
by whistleblowers and official sources. Here is what we have found:
  On December 16, 2011, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector 
General announced that its investigation would begin immediately and 
that it was to be coordinated with the CIA inspector general. It would 
be conducted by the Office of Intelligence and Special Program 
Assessments headed by a Mr. James Ives. That investigation took a year.
  A draft report was submitted for classification review on October 24, 
2012. The allegations were substantiated. No. 1, senior officials, 
including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, his chief of staff Jeremy 
Bash, and Under Secretary of Intelligence Michael Vickers, allegedly 
made unauthorized disclosures of highly classified information on that 
raid. No. 2, these alleged disclosures may have placed special 
operations personnel and their families in harm's way.
  One month later the draft report containing those allegations was 
declared unclassified. A coordination package was then developed. It 
included a publicly releasable version, talking points for reporters, 
and transmittal memos to the Defense Secretary and Chairman King.
  This package was circulated internally for review and clearance. The 
next and final step was submission to Deputy IG Halbrooks as a request 
for release. Now, by normal standards, the report was ready for issue. 
However, there was a major foul-up--a real show stopper. The review 
process was bungled from start to finish.
  All references to unauthorized disclosures of highly classified 
information by senior officials had to be stripped from the report 
before it could be published. This draconian measure, which gutted the 
report and made it unfit for publication, was mandated by a 
longstanding department policy. This long standing department policy 
was known only to the two leaders of the investigation, Deputies 
Halbrooks and Ives. It was their responsibility to execute it at the 
front end of the review.
  I want to make one point crystal clear. I don't support the policy of 
censoring reports. It is a bad policy that needs to be changed. My 
beef, though, is if that is the policy, then it should have been 
followed, but it wasn't followed until the last possible moment.
  To make matters far worse, both Ives and Halbrooks failed to 
communicate the policy mandate to those who needed the information to 
ready the report for publication. Halbrooks and Ives kept the 
investigative team in the dark--like a bunch of mushrooms. So they had 
the mistaken notion the uncensored report was final and ready to go. 
This caused a great deal of turmoil.
  Two factors set the stage for the bungled review process. First, the 
official assigned to lead the project, Mr. Ives, lacked relevant 
professional experience, and top management failed to actively 
supervise his day-to-day progress on the report to ensure that he 
followed established protocols. He needed guidance navigating his way 
through an unfamiliar process but received no guidance. Plus, his 
appointment was limited to 4 months on a project that took 2 years.
  This was a recipe for disaster.
  Second, the problem was compounded by a failure to coordinate with 
the CIA inspector general before the investigation got rolling. 
Effective coordination was essential. Congressman King's request 
crossed jurisdictional lines between two powerful agencies, the CIA and 
the Department of Defense.
  The CIA's inspector general was ultimately responsible for the 
alleged misconduct because it occurred while Panetta and his Chief of 
Staff, Jeremy Bash, were CIA employees. The fact that they had moved to 
the Pentagon after the investigation started was irrelevant.
  This was a no-brainer, but for inexplicable reasons the Department of 
Defense IG tackled the Panetta-Bash allegations. This was an 
irresponsible and wasteful action. It took over a year of groping down 
blind alleys for the reality to finally sink in. By then it was way too 
late.
  The failure of the two agencies to coordinate effectively right up 
front had disastrous consequence. Just as the report was reaching 
critical mass in late 2012, the Panetta case had to be referred back to 
the CIA IG for investigation. Panetta's alleged misconduct was the 
heart and soul of the report.
  It was suddenly gone, leaving the report hollow and empty. How could 
all this senseless blundering happen unless it was part of a plan to 
slow-roll or even torpedo the report. The blundering was coupled with 
unexplained delays.
  Between mid-December and early January, Deputy Ives finally completed 
the mandated substantial review, which gutted the report. However, it 
did not regain forward motion until after Secretary Panetta retired 
February 27, 2013.
  Halbrooks claims she did not receive or see a draft until March 25, 
2013.

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Aside from a few minor edits, there is no record of significant edits 
between Mr. Ives' review and publication of the report. The 3-month 
delay in reaching her desk and subsequent delays until June remain 
unexplained and unaccounted for.
  These facts create the perception that the review process was slowed 
by Halbrooks and others at her direction to shield Department of 
Defense officials from scrutiny. She claims her nomination was dead at 
that point and no longer a potential conflict, but she offers no 
evidence to back it up.
  Moreover, this timeline fits with other relevant information. 
According to a whistleblower, she stated repeatedly that the report 
would not be issued until Panetta stepped down--and that is exactly 
what happened.
  Finally, the bungled review process may have triggered 
whistleblowing. Whistleblowers thought the report was about to be 
issued in late 2012 when media talking points were circulated. When 
that didn't happen, they perceived a coverup. They contacted my office 
and then they leaked the report to the Project on Government Oversight, 
which is normally referred to around this town as POGO.
  The uncensored version of the report appeared on POGO's Web site on 
June 4, 2013. Ten days later, the IG's office reacted by finally 
issuing a censured version of the report. If POGO had not acted, the 
report might never have seen the light of day. It might have been 
pigeonholed for good.
  Immediately after the initial report was issued, Halbrooks launched a 
hunt for the mole. She wanted to know who leaked the reports to POGO. 
Extensive interviews were conducted and 33,269 emails were examined, 
but the leaker was not found.
  However, during questioning, Mr. Dan Meyer, the DOD OIG Director of 
Whistleblowing and Transparency, admitted to giving a copy of the 
report to Congress. He was one of the many OIG employees who mistakenly 
believed the uncensored version of the report circulated in late 2012 
for final review and clearance was, indeed, final.
  He thought it was ready to go out the door. As the Director of 
Whistleblowing and Transparency, maybe he just thought he was doing his 
job and being--as every government official ought to be--very 
transparent because the public's business ought to be public. Around 
this town, however, that is not always the case.
  Mr. Meyer's admission triggered swift and decisive action. He was 
accused of making false statements, placing his security clearance in 
jeopardy. This action had the potential of destroying his career. Now, 
fortunately--and this doesn't happen very often around this town--the 
new inspector general at the Department of Defense, Jon Rymer, 
intervened in Mr. Meyer's behalf and blocked those efforts.
  The case against Mr. Meyer was very flimsy, though his clearance is 
still hanging fire. In the end, Mr. Meyer bore the brunt of blame for 
the POGO leak. The principal targets of the investigation--Panetta, 
Vickers, and Bash--skated. Mr. Meyer exposed their alleged misconduct, 
and yet he got hammered. Justice was turned upside down.
  What happened during the 22 months between Chairman King's request 
and June 2013, when the report was finally issued, is a tangled 
bureaucratic mess. Despite exhaustive questioning, a satisfactory 
explanation hasn't been given. What I have presented today is just a 
brief summary of the facts and analysis laid out in greater detail in a 
staff report that I released today.
  In that report my staff identified potential red flags pertaining to 
the way the Office of the Inspector General handled the ``Zero Dark 
Thirty'' report. These were boiled down to nine conclusions that fell 
into four broad categories: No. 1, impairment of IG independence and 
lack of commitment to the spirit and intent of the IG act; No. 2, weak 
leadership; No. 3, mismanagement; and No. 4, waste of time and 
taxpayers' money.
  The staff findings suggest that some corrective action may be 
justified, including an appropriate measure of accountability. If 
misconduct and/or mismanagement occurred, then Deputies Lynne Halbrooks 
and James Ives, both of whom led the ``Zero Dark Thirty'' project, 
would appear to be chiefly responsible for whatever happened.
  It is also recommended that the longstanding department policy--which 
earlier I told you I disagreed with--of censoring sensitive information 
from reports not be applied to cases involving alleged misconduct by 
top officials because agency heads and their senior deputies should be 
held to a higher standard. They should be subjected to greater public 
scrutiny. This policy needs review and possible modification.
  When all is said and done, the proof is, of course, in the pudding, 
as they say. What good came from this effort? Its true value is 
reflected in the end product, the highly sanitized report that was 
finally issued June 14, 2013, 6 months after it was finished. I believe 
that it is a second-class piece of work that is not worth the paper 
that it is written on.
  Even Halbrooks seems to agree that the report's face value is close 
to zero. This is what she said during an interview with my staff. She 
said that once Ives removed all the derogatory information on Panetta 
and Vickers, the report was no longer interesting or important to me--
meaning her--and it just dropped off my radar screen--and words to that 
effect. She was talking about the report issued June 14, 2013.
  Halbrooks is correct about the value of the report, but she is dead 
wrong about her responsibility as IG for the unfinished report. At that 
point, she appears to have lost sight of her core mission as the 
inspector general.
  The report was about alleged misconduct by her boss, the Secretary of 
Defense. It was requested by the chairman of the House oversight 
committee, Mr. King.
  She had a solemn duty to put it back on her radar screen and keep it 
there--front and center--until it was fixed. Once it was ready and up 
to standard, she should have presented it proudly and enthusiastically 
to the Congress and the Secretary of Defense--and done it properly and 
in restricted format, if necessary.
  This project was an unmitigated disaster spawned by a series of top-
level missteps and blunders. All the wasted energy and blundering 
produced nothing better than internal confusion, turmoil, dissent, and 
more alleged misconduct.
  Two years's worth of hard work and money was more or less poured down 
a rat hole. To make matters far worse, a valued employee was threatened 
with termination. This person has unique and unparalleled knowledge of 
whistleblowing and a rock-solid commitment to fair treatment of 
whistleblowers.
  Were it not for Inspector General Rymer, he would be out on the 
street this very day. Halbrooks' search for the mole was misguided.
  The inspector general's office needs strong leadership that has the 
courage to tell it like it is and to report wrongdoing promptly to 
agency heads and even Congress with recommendations for corrective 
action. When the Secretary and the Under Secretary stand accused of 
misconduct, as in this case, the IG should double down and ensure 
public accountability. Thus far in this matter there has been none 
because truth was hidden behind a questionable policy that may have 
been abused.
  There is an excellent case in point from just a few years back. 
Deputy Secretary of Defense and CIA Director John Deutsch allegedly 
mishandled highly classified information and got hammered for doing so. 
He lost his security clearance for 6 years and came very close to 
prosecution. Unlike this case--the ``Zero Dark Thirty'' leaks--the John 
Deutsch matter was dealt with effectively and it was aired publicly.
  The ``Zero Dark Thirty'' model was wasteful of the taxpayers' money, 
it was harmful to morale, and harmful to the perceived independence of 
the IG's office. It should be used as an educational tool to teach 
Office of Inspector General employees in any department of government 
how not to conduct investigations of alleged misconduct by senior 
officials.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.

[[Page 16637]]




                           The Extenders Bill

  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I would like to amplify the remarks made 
recently by my colleague from Utah Senator Hatch, our distinguished 
ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, concerning the year-end 
tax legislation--what is called the tax extenders bill.
  Senator Hatch was entirely correct, it seems to me, when he said that 
getting this legislation through the Senate had been an ordeal, an 
unnecessary ordeal not only for the Senate but more particularly for 
every person in business back home in my State of Kansas and also 
throughout the country--Utah, Kansas, wherever in the United States. I 
am talking about farmers, ranchers, small business owners, 
manufacturers and all of their employees; in other words, the backbone 
of our economy.
  It is a real shame that the longer term extenders deal developed by 
the chairmen of the tax committees and the leaders in the House and 
Senate--yes, you heard me right, both chairmen in the House and Senate 
and both leaders--have agreed that basically this deal that was reached 
before the Thanksgiving holiday has collapsed.
  The deal included a number of very critical items, including a 
permanent simplification of the research credit that would help 
businesses plan and invest in job-creating innovation. The package also 
included a number of provisions for which I had worked very hard, 
including special depreciation and expensing rules that are very 
important to agriculture and small business.
  The plan also included bipartisan legislation I developed with 
Senator Schumer to modify the research and development tax credit so it 
could be more easily used by smaller businesses, where the bulk of 
technological innovation occurs.
  The plan also included long-term extension of legislation I have 
pushed to make sure smaller businesses are able to access the capital 
they need to grow and hire new employees.
  These provisions are not giveaways. They free up capital and cash 
that can be invested and recycled into economic growth. That is a good 
thing. We should have done that. These provisions do not fit within the 
class warfare debate--actually, it is not a debate but rather a 
diversionary tactic that actually took place, that shouldn't have even 
been mentioned. A veto should never have even been forthcoming from the 
White House.
  I have heard the complaint the proposal was too business focused. 
Since business today is mired in a swamp of regulation and guessing 
games and unpredictability, the focus of a so-called tax-extenders bill 
should have darn well been focused on business. Not every person in 
America works for our growing government.
  The deal would have also helped individual taxpayers, from teachers 
taking a deduction for school supplies they purchase with their own 
money to help for homeowners who have defaulted on a mortgage or faced 
financial hardship, to deductions for college tuition and expenses. 
These provisions would keep more money in the pocket of taxpayers, a 
better place for it.
  The package represented months of good-faith work by the tax 
committees and leadership in both Houses of Congress, something unique 
that we have not experienced around here for quite a while. Obviously, 
the deal wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it would have been a great 
downpayment for true tax reform. Most of all, it would have brought 
certainty and clarity to tax policy, something we sorely need and which 
is long overdue.
  Let me give an example of what I mean. Earlier this week I visited 
with farmers in Kansas at the annual Kansas Farm Bureau meeting--about 
1,000 farmers attended. One farmer, who shared his views so pretty much 
everybody around him could hear, told me he had recently purchased new 
farm equipment--combines and tractors so his family could step up work 
on their land, expand their operation, and he was upset. Actually, he 
was not upset, he was mad because, according to him, ``we've been 
messing around in Washington too much with the extenders bill.'' He was 
mad because if the equipment expensing rules aren't extended, he is out 
many thousands of dollars. That is just a portion of what has been 
spent. But that is money he would have used to buy more equipment or 
more land--the productive use of capital--and not some trivial amount 
used for a vacation or something else.
  It is not just this farmer. My phone has been ringing off the hook 
all month with calls from farmers, ranchers, equipment dealers, and 
other businesses that need to know whether this will get extended, and 
they, too, are upset--make that mad. They are frustrated, and they need 
us to get to work to help them run their businesses and their lives.
  Yes, even with the recent blowup, we will extend these tax provisions 
but only for 1 year--a month--and then we will be back at it again next 
year, and these folks will be in the same position, the same kind of 
purgatory, wondering whether we will ever come to our senses, wondering 
whether to buy that new tractor or buy the new production line or to 
hire new employees.
  Every day when I visit with business owners and taxpayers in Kansas I 
hear over and over one simple refrain: Senator, we need certainty in 
the Tax Code. We need to be able to rely on a stable tax system so we 
can plan and grow our business. Senator Pat, the Congress needs to do 
something about these tax extenders.
  I couldn't agree more, and I think most of us, if not all of us on 
the Senate Finance Committee, couldn't agree more. The lack of 
certainty about these tax provisions is bad for American families. It 
is bad for business looking to create jobs, and it is bad for our 
economy. It leaves businesses unable to plan ahead and invest because 
they are left in the dark about what tax provisions will affect their 
operations.
  So what happened to the deal? Why are we at this point debating 
another kick of the can down the road? The imperial Presidency has 
happened. The President has decided that instituting an Executive 
amnesty was the best course of action before the end of the year.
  President Obama's immigration grenade doomed the tax extenders deal. 
Real negotiations unraveled, a veto threat was issued, and the 
bipartisan compromises were killed. Because of President Obama's my-
way-or-the-highway approach to leadership and to amnesty, Congress is 
now forced to once again cobble together a 1-year tax policy patch that 
basically nobody wants. This hurts families, job creators, farmers, 
ranchers, teachers--everyone who needs to plan ahead to succeed.
  So instead of working with Congress to develop an immigration reform 
compromise, we have the most arrogant attack on the Constitution I have 
ever seen. Once again the President placed partisan politics above the 
needs of the middle class--our workers and business owners, our 
students, our teachers, and indeed our entire economy.
  Without this unprecedented illegal Executive order, we would right 
now be discussing a long-term extension of these vital tax provisions. 
We could maybe even have voted on it as of this year--as of this week--
laying a strong base for comprehensive tax reform. Instead, the 
President has sacrificed job-producing tax policy for the expedience of 
Executive action.
  As I have said elsewhere, the President has seemingly no interest in 
a constructive working relationship with Congress. He didn't have any 
intention of listening to the will of the American people, and he has 
no respect for the constitutional boundaries of his office. This is 
beyond troubling, but its spillover into other areas, such as tax 
policy, does not bode well for the bipartisan development of policy to 
build the economy we so desperately need and that we were so close to 
achieving.
  But let us be hopeful. Maybe something good will come out of this 
whole situation. Maybe we will recognize the level of dysfunction 
illustrated by the Executive order, and I hope it will point us back to 
regular order. It is critically important that we return to regular 
order in the Senate, in particular with all of the major fiscal issues 
we face.

[[Page 16638]]

  Bringing the extenders package to the Finance Committee was a strong 
sign that we mean business and that we are ready to move on a 
bipartisan basis to address the fiscal issues that are facing the 
country. Sadly, that effort was sabotaged. Without that action, we 
would be moving toward a more sensible, bipartisan, progrowth extenders 
bill and perhaps well on our way to tax reform. That we are not is a 
shame. It didn't have to be this way.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.


                 Tribute to Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker

  Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, I have a couple of things I wish to do 
before I assume the Chair, and I want to express my great gratitude to 
my friend from Massachusetts for his willingness to sit tight for a 
little bit.
  I was sitting here thinking about the two men I want to talk about, 
and I was thinking about how similar they are; how different their 
backgrounds are but how similar their goals in life and their interests 
in the people they serve. It is the great irony of our democracy that 
regardless of where you come from, if you come to serve the public, you 
come to love the public, and you come to believe in the work you do and 
believe that every person has to be given an opportunity.
  So I first want to offer my great condolences to the family of Mayor 
Denny Walaker from our great city of Fargo, ND. It is truly with a 
heavy heart I come to the floor to pay tribute to the mayor of Fargo.
  Dennis Walaker--to those of us who knew him well, Denny--passed away 
Tuesday after a very short but aggressive fight in his battle against 
cancer. His passing I think shocked most of us and certainly saddened 
all of us.
  Mayor Walaker was a giant in Fargo, not only in stature--he was a big 
guy--but as a leader and fighter for the city he loved. He dedicated 
his entire life to public service, first serving in the North Dakota 
Department of Transportation, later joining the city of Fargo as a 
civil engineer.
  For 40 years, Denny has been a fixture in this growing city, from 
leading the city's flood fight in 1997 as chief operations manager for 
the city and later as mayor. One cannot think of Fargo without thinking 
of Mayor Walaker and seeing in every corner the impact he made, whether 
it was infrastructure investment improvements to providing a strong 
foundation for a thriving community and city, to the revitalization of 
the city's downtown, to his focus on those within the city who are less 
fortunate.
  He led the city through unprecedented growth while always working 
diligently to make sure the region secured the long-term flood 
protection that was necessary to sustain that growth. He was always 
willing to listen and cared deeply for all the people of the city of 
Fargo. The people of Fargo always came first for him, no matter what.
  For many of us, Denny will always be remembered for leading the 
city's flood-fighting effort, particularly in 1997 and 2009 when the 
city of Fargo confronted a historic flood. He had keen instincts when 
it came to understanding and predicting the Red River and wasn't afraid 
to push back on the so-called experts. His calm, clear, and decisive 
decisionmaking in 2009 when he made the decision that the city would 
not evacuate when facing record-setting flood levels but would instead 
stay and fight together--that image of him building our city and 
building our community will forever be etched in the memories and the 
minds of those of us who knew Denny.
  However, for all of the discussion about the flood fight, there is so 
much more Denny did in addition to his role as chief flood-fighter, but 
much of it was under the radar. It was away from the spotlight.
  Just a few weeks ago I was with the mayor in one of his last public 
appearances. It was an event where we were honored for the work we had 
both done on affordable housing. At that event he remarked to me and 
the others who were there how proud he was to receive that award and 
how proud he was about the work he had done on affordable housing 
because, he told all of us, he wanted to make sure that Fargo was a 
city for every citizen, that every citizen in Fargo had an opportunity 
for a good home. He was passionate in fighting for those less 
fortunate, and his heart and his personality really were unmatched.
  People like Mayor Walaker are the unsung heroes of our democracy. He 
stepped up to serve when his city needed him, and he was a friend and 
hero to so many.
  A few weeks ago I was in Fargo for the College Game Day. Denny 
couldn't make it because he was recuperating from surgery at his home. 
I had a chance to talk to him on the phone, and I was explaining the 
scene for him in downtown Fargo--the part of Fargo he had revitalized 
and nurtured back to an incredible, healthy center of activity for that 
great city. I was telling him how proud he would be to see not only the 
citizens there enjoying themselves but also the work that had been done 
by the city workforce and the fact that Fargo was able to move that 
game day effort on such short notice. I think it really is indicative 
of the history of Fargo, and that history was part of the history Denny 
built.
  He will always have a place in my heart. He will always have a place 
in the hearts of so many in Fargo and the surrounding areas and 
throughout the State of North Dakota.
  I love Denny. I am pretty sure he was the only public official in 
North Dakota who had a picture of Barack Obama on his wall. He had met 
the President. He believed in a lot of what the President had said--
obviously not on everything, but he believed in public service, and he 
believed in the challenges and respecting people who stepped up.
  We mourn Denny's loss, but we celebrate his life as an incredible 
example of a leader. He was one of a kind. I offer my sincerest 
condolences to his wife Mary, his daughters, grandchildren, and his 
entire family. I also extend my sincerest condolences on the loss of a 
great mayor, a great public servant, and a great friend to a great 
city, the city of Fargo.


                       Tribute To Jay Rockefeller

  Mr. President, I have only known Jay for a couple of years. When I 
first started, I would go home to North Dakota and people would ask me 
kind of consistently: So whom do you meet? To whom do you listen? What 
has been a big surprise? Who are your favorite people?
  This may come as a surprise because I didn't come with the idea that 
I would have an opportunity to work with or spend time with Senator 
Rockefeller, but I said: The one person who impressed me the most when 
I first got here was Senator Jay Rockefeller.
  For so many of us, he is a giant--not only physically.
  They would say: What about him?
  One of my finest moments was watching Senator Rockefeller stand and 
visit with Barbara Mikulski. I am pretty sure she might be the shortest 
person in the Senate, and I am pretty sure Jay might be the tallest.
  I would say: What you don't know about Senator Rockefeller is that 
not only in intellectual stature but in physical stature he is a giant 
of a man.
  But it is not the intellectual stature of Senator Rockefeller that 
impressed me. It certainly wasn't his size that impressed me. It was 
the size of his heart and how much he cared for the people he served in 
West Virginia.
  I had a chance this year to travel to West Virginia and spend time 
with the folks of his great State. As they were looking at this 
transition, they would tell me stories about Senator Rockefeller. They 
would tell me stories about what he meant to them and the things he had 
gone out of his way to do--things that were beyond maybe even what the 
expectations of a populous would ever be, but Jay was there for them, 
and they knew that every day when he woke up, in his heart were the 
people of West Virginia. I think we heard that today with his floor 
speech, as he talked about the impact of coming to West Virginia as a 
young VISTA worker, the impact it had on him that changed his life and 
created the man we see today.
  So I celebrate a Senator with an enormous intellect and an enormous

[[Page 16639]]

capacity for facts and data and public policy, but that wasn't what 
made him a great Senator. What made Jay Rockefeller a great Senator was 
his enormous heart for the people he served.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


       Enhanced Tax Incentive for Conservation Easement Donations

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I begin by echoing the wonderful 
analysis of my colleague Senator Heitkamp relative to how much we are 
all going to miss Senator Jay Rockefeller. As she pointed out, he 
reminded us today why we all are here, and that is to try to make a 
difference for our constituents and for the people we serve. No one did 
that better than Jay Rockefeller. He was always a voice for those most 
in need and never stopped fighting for the people he served. We will 
certainly miss him.
  I come to the floor this afternoon to talk about a provision that I 
think we need to make sure is included as we continue to negotiate and 
debate the tax extenders package, a commonsense, bipartisan, bicameral 
provision that enjoys a lot of support and one that I think should be 
included in any reform or extension effort; that is, the enhanced tax 
incentive for conservation easement donations.
  Conservation easements are a critical component of modern-day efforts 
to preserve our outdoor treasures. That is something which means a lot 
to us in New Hampshire, where we have so many wonderful natural 
resources and historic resources, and we want to try to preserve them.
  One of the things that conservation easements do is provide a 
flexible, voluntary, nongovernmental, and nonregulatory approach to 
protecting our Nation's natural places. Conservation easements and tax 
incentives for their donations allow landowners to exchange development 
rights in order to protect a property's conservation values. That then 
allows them to pass on those conservation values to future generations. 
Easements keep the land in its natural state and ensure that these 
outdoor treasures aren't subdivided and exploited. Just as important, 
lands placed in conservation easements can continue to be farmed, 
grazed, hunted, or used for outdoor recreation and wildlife 
conservation. Equally important, they remain on the tax rolls, which 
makes a huge difference to local communities.
  In 2006 Congress recognized the importance of promoting conservation 
easements by enacting the enhanced tax incentive for conservation 
easement donations. That was done with bipartisan, bicameral support 
because it is an idea that makes sense.
  This tax incentive provided working and middle-class landowners with 
the ability to donate their land for conservation as opposed to simply 
selling off the land to the highest bidder, allowing it to be developed 
and partitioned off. The great thing about this incentive is that it 
worked. It is directly responsible for the conservation of more than 2 
million acres of our Nation's natural outdoor heritage.
  Unfortunately, as with so many provisions in the tax extenders bill, 
this tax incentive lapsed at the end of 2013. As a result, landowners 
who want to donate their land for conservation but need this enhanced 
deduction to make it work financially are left in limbo.
  Making this incentive permanent will provide much needed certainty to 
landowners because the decision of whether to donate conservation 
easements on land--and land is often a family's most valuable asset--
requires careful planning and consideration, and it often takes years 
from the initial conversations with the landowner before conservation 
easement is executed. Understandably, many landowners will never begin 
this process without the assurance of a permanent incentive.
  In New Hampshire we have seen firsthand how valuable the enhanced 
conservation easement tax credit is when it comes to making sure we are 
protecting our special outdoor places for generations to come. For 
example, take Henry Brooks, Jr., and his sister Linda Brown. They 
donated two conservation easements on about 200 acres of land in 
Sullivan, NH, which is down in the western part of our State in what we 
call the Monadnock Region, not too far from the Vermont border. The 
land had been in their family since the time of the town's founding--
over 200 years. It is open fields with expansive views all the way to 
Vermont. The fields are pasture and hay lands that are used for Henry's 
beef cattle. The forests, streams, and wetlands also provide excellent 
wildlife habitat.
  The enhanced conservation easement tax incentive was very persuasive 
in the decision to move forward and finish the project by the end of 
2013. In particular, the ability to take that deduction over the course 
of 16 years is going to make a significant difference for Henry, who is 
really of modest means. As his sister Linda said, the enhanced 
incentive is a win-win situation.
  Another example that I think is significant is the Squam Lakes 
watershed. The Squam watershed is renowned for its conservation ethos, 
and it is the only watershed that is listed on the National Register of 
Historic Places. Organizations, such as the Squam Lake Conservation 
Society, have used conservation easements to protect 25 percent of the 
watershed, and, thanks to tax deductions, 91 percent of these easements 
were donated. Think about that--25 percent of the watershed and 91 
percent of it has been donated.
  Projects like these in New Hampshire are great examples of the need 
to renew the enhanced conservation easement deduction. Protecting these 
spaces isn't just good for the environment. Certainly that is the case, 
but it is also critical to New Hampshire's economy, and I know that is 
true in other States as well. Our economy depends on tourism, on 
outdoor recreation. We have thousands of jobs that are created in those 
industries that bring millions of dollars into our State, and if we can 
preserve our landscape and protect our national resources, it makes a 
huge difference in ensuring that those industries are successful, that 
tourists want to continue to come and visit.
  Right now we have families who are making decisions about what they 
are going to do about conservation easements, and they are in limbo 
because Congress has not yet acted on this issue. We haven't determined 
if we are going to pass that forward. So people don't know whether they 
are going to have any certainty about taking a tax deduction on a 
conservation easement. It is time for us to provide some certainty to 
encourage people to make those contributions to protect these national 
treasures. It is important not only in New Hampshire, I am sure it is 
important in North Dakota and across this country.
  I urge my colleagues, as we are continuing to look at a tax extenders 
bill, that we support this legislation that will make smart incentives 
to help our local economies grow stronger and help the middle class.
  Thank you very much. I hope we can make some progress on this next 
week. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Tribute to Summer Mersinger

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I rise to recognize the end of an era in 
my office in Washington, DC, because at the end of the year, Summer 
Mersinger will be leaving my office. She has been in my office for 15 
years. She comes from a small town in Central South Dakota called 
Onida. The town is about an hour and a half away from where I grew up. 
Our towns are similar in size with similar backgrounds when it comes to 
the area in which we were raised and growing up in Onida, SD. Obviously 
she had a lot of the same experiences I did growing up in a small town. 
She took those experiences and has used them now for the past 15 years 
in my office.
  Before she got to my office she went to the University of Minnesota 
and got

[[Page 16640]]

her degree there in 1999, came to Washington, DC, worked as an intern, 
and then shortly after that became a full-time employee in my House 
office at the time. For the past 15 years, through thick and thin, 
through the ups and downs, the good days and the bad days, Summer has 
been the rock in our office. She has been the glue that holds things 
together. I have described her as the center of gravity. I have 
described her as a mama bear, lots of different things, but people in 
our office know she is the go-to person. If you want to get something 
done in our office, you go through Summer.
  So when it comes time for her to move on to a different opportunity, 
obviously, it is a time that we want to recognize and pay tribute to 
her great service in our office. Usually around here--I think most 
people know this--it is the Members themselves, the Senators whose 
names are in the press releases, whose names get to be on the door, but 
it is the staff who really gets things done in the Senate, and I have 
been very blessed and fortunate to have people such as Summer Mersinger 
work in our office. I think of all the people who work in the Senate 
and the hard jobs they have trying to balance the hours we have to put 
in, the sacrifices that come with that, the time away from family, 
always being on call on weekends, always having to put out fires, 
whatever that might be--well, that is the role Summer has served in our 
office for a very long time.
  Not only is she very skilled at what she does, but she brings so many 
other attributes to the job. Summer is somebody who has a powerful work 
ethic. She is somebody who has over the years expressed a calming 
demeanor in our office, as somebody who always is able to deal with 
people, all personalities, and somebody who most importantly has 
absolute integrity. Her wise counsel is something from which I have 
benefitted enormously over the years. One of the great attributes is 
she is intensely loyal when I don't deserve it. She has been somebody 
who has been an ally and I couldn't have a better ally than she.
  So as she departs to do something else and moves on with her life, we 
want to wish her well. I had the opportunity to see a lot of transition 
and a lot of change in her life over the years from the time she 
started working for me, particularly when we got to the Senate. She not 
only worked full time but earned a law degree at the same time. She met 
a great guy here in Washington, got married, and has four children. At 
the same time she continued to work full time and handle all the 
difficult responsibilities that come with working and leading and 
running a Senate office. There aren't many people who could pull that 
off, and she has tirelessly dedicated herself to public service, to 
serving the people of South Dakota, to serving the Senate and serving 
in our office. There will be a very big void indeed when she leaves.
  We are grateful for that outstanding service and the time we had to 
work with her. I thank her for her outstanding work for the people of 
South Dakota and for the Senate and for our office, but more 
importantly for her friendship and her always wise counsel.
  We will miss her, but we know that whatever she does, she will be out 
there making a difference because that is the kind of person she is. So 
we say farewell to her at the end of the year and wish her and her 
family well and look forward to seeing her around the neighborhood and 
maybe even someday back in the small town of Onida, SD.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.


                      Secretary of Defense Nominee

  Mr. COATS. Madam President, it is widely anticipated that the 
President intends to nominate Dr. Ashton Carter to be the next 
Secretary of Defense, perhaps as early as tomorrow, and I welcome that 
nomination. Should Dr. Carter take over the helm at the Defense 
Department, it would coincide with an ominous development on a national 
security issue that he and I have dealt with together in the past, and 
that issue is the growing danger that Iran will soon be able to develop 
nuclear weapons and the inability of prolonged negotiations with Iran 
to prevent them from doing so.
  In 2008 Ash Carter and I participated in coauthoring a report by the 
Bipartisan Policy Center entitled ``Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy 
Toward Iranian Nuclear Development.'' In that report we acknowledged 
that Iran's nuclear program would pose ``the most significant strategic 
threat to the United States during the next administration.'' That 
group, which was cochaired by former Senator Chuck Robb and myself, 
included many with long and well-respected credentials on foreign 
policy matters.
  That report also emphasized what was at stake and what the 
consequences would be if Iran was allowed to achieve nuclear weapons 
capability. I want to quote from what we said and concluded.

       A nuclear-ready or nuclear-armed Islamic Republic ruled by 
     the clerical regime could threaten the Persian Gulf region 
     and its vast energy resources, spark nuclear proliferation 
     throughout the Middle East, inject additional volatility into 
     global energy markets, embolden extremists in the region and 
     destabilize states such as Saudi Arabia and others in the 
     region, provide nuclear technology to other radical regimes 
     and terrorists . . . and seek to make good on its threats to 
     eradicate Israel.

  That is why this threat has been labeled by most in the intelligence 
community, if not all, as the most significant long-term threat to the 
United States. This was written in 2008. Now, 6 years later into this 
current administration, we can see the truth of those judgments. 
Unfortunately, what we have also seen is that this administration has 
not dealt effectively with this growing threat.
  In our Bipartisan Policy Center report Ash Carter and I called for 
direct negotiations with Iran, but on the condition that these 
negotiations were backed by strong economic sanctions and the threat of 
military force as a last resort if all other efforts failed to achieve 
the stated goal of preventing Iran from attaining the capability of 
producing nuclear weapons. We did not come to this conclusion easily. 
We debated it for months. We debated each phase of the potential 
negotiation with Iran through diplomacy, through the imposition of 
sanctions, through the potential threat of military force, and 
ultimately the need to use military force if we could not achieve the 
desired objective. We obviously made that the last resort, and only if 
all other efforts failed. As I said, it was written in 2008.
  Most relevant at this moment was our insistence--and I quote from the 
report again--``that any U.S.-Iranian talks will not be open-ended, but 
will be limited to a predetermined time period so that Tehran does not 
try to `run out the clock.'''
  Our deepest concern with the failure to move forward with an ever-
ratcheting and tightening combination of diplomacy, sanctions, and 
threat of force was that Iran would run out the clock, and in the 
meantime, continue to spin the centrifuges and add to those methods 
which were producing the ability for them to obtain nuclear weapons 
capability.
  Now, more than 6 years later, after prolonged negotiations and yet 
another extension of talks without achieving the stated goal of ending 
the regime's quest, it is time to reassess where we currently stand.
  President Obama is not only ignoring the clear and present danger of 
Iranian ambitions, he is abetting those ambitions by surrendering key 
positions first and then pursuing negotiations that confirm our 
weakness. For 8 years U.S. policy, backed by six United Nations 
Security Council resolutions, insisted that Iran abandon its program to 
enrich uranium because of the mortal danger that it would arm itself 
with nuclear weapons. That policy was discarded virtually at the start 
of the negotiations with Iran--a year and a half or so ago--indeed, 
before the negotiations began.
  Although the subjects of uranium enrichment, weapons programs, 
inspections, and nuclear power are highly complex and the discussions 
have been lengthy, they all lead now to a very simple question: How 
much ability will Iran have to enrich uranium and how many centrifuges 
will it be permitted to operate in reaching its goal?

[[Page 16641]]

  When the U.N. Security Council passed its first resolution demanding 
that Iran cease enriching uranium, Iran had 800 centrifuges doing that 
illegal work. Today, after 2 years of direct negotiations on this 
specific issue, Iran has 19,000 centrifuges. I will repeat that: After 
2 years of direct negotiations, Iran has moved from 800 centrifuges to 
19,000 centrifuges. Any negotiated agreement that gives Iran the 
ability to retain so much uranium capability is completely 
unacceptable, and the Senate should prevent such failure from being 
ratified or otherwise accepted by this Congress.
  When it comes to negotiation strategy, we should learn from past 
failures. This is not the first time we have been through something 
like this. An instructional example comes from our experience with 
North Korea.
  When I first served in the Senate, we were dealing with this very 
subject. Starting with the so-called ``Agreed Framework'' in 1994, we 
tried to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem by cycles of 
negotiations salted with incentives. Does that sound familiar?
  At various times we have relieved international economic sanctions 
pressure in return for promises of improved behavior from the North 
Koreans. As we pursued inconsistent and diffident strategies, the North 
Koreans responded with bouts of hostility, cynical manipulation, and 
threats.
  They have repeatedly tested missiles with nuclear capability, 
revealed a vast new uranium enrichment facility previously undetected 
by the International Atomic Energy Association and our own services, 
tested nuclear weapons, intimidated and threatened their neighbors, and 
continued to build their nuclear weapons arsenal.
  I distinctly remember being on this floor and questioning our ability 
to verify that the Koreans would live up to what they promised to do, 
and that was to not develop nuclear weapon capability.
  Oh, we have this all wired in. We have their promise. We have 
provided aid to them in the nature of food and in the nature of a 
number of financial incentives, and we have the verification procedures 
in place.
  We know that none of that worked. We know we were rope-a-doped by the 
North Koreans, just as we are being rope-a-doped by the Iranians. We 
have a precedent on which we ought to be basing our decisions in terms 
of how we go forward.
  Maintaining the status quo is not the way to diffuse a critical 
threat to our national security. This is a view, by the way, that Ash 
Carter has expressed emphatically and one of the major reasons why I 
will so strongly urge for his confirmation to be Secretary of Defense.
  To the contrary, Secretary Kerry, who energetically leads the current 
negotiation strategy with Iran, should surely have learned from the 
fallacies of the North Korea agreed framework example, which was that 
strategy's predecessor.
  When Senator Kerry and I were both in the Senate, he strongly 
supported the North Korea strategy and was harshly critical of the Bush 
administration for not doing the same.
  In March 2001, then-Senator Kerry said:

       The Clinton administration left a framework on the table 
     which could, if pursued aggressively by the Bush 
     administration, go a long way toward reducing the threat 
     posed by North Korean missiles and missile exports . . . two 
     days ago Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that the Bush 
     administration would ``pick up'' where the Clinton 
     administration left off.

  Secretary Kerry went on to say:

       Apparently not. Yesterday, President Bush told . . . 
     President Kim . . . that the administration would not resume 
     missile talks with North Korea any time soon. I believe this 
     was a serious mistake in judgment.

  Now, after the clear and massive failure of negotiations with North 
Korea, Secretary Kerry is pursuing a Groundhog Day strategy for dealing 
with Iran. We now know for certain that North Korea was simply using 
negotiations to lead us down that garden path to cynical noncompliance. 
So why do Secretary Kerry and President Obama continue to believe 
blindly in hopeful talks rather than hard-edged compulsion?
  This unguided blindness leads us to a second problem: The 
administration has ignored not only the United Nations Security 
Council, but the U.S. Congress as well. The administration has been 
clear about its intention to circumvent congressional scrutiny and 
agreement of any deal because of widespread bipartisan opposition. I 
believe that is a serious mistake.
  Any settlement of issues regarding Iran's nuclear program is of 
paramount importance to the security of the American people, not to 
mention the security and stability of the world. Any proposed agreement 
requires thorough review and deliberation by this Congress. An 
agreement on an issue of such vast significance requires a bipartisan, 
bicameral consensus and mutual support and agreement by both the 
executive and legislative branches of government. Anything less than 
that should not be acceptable.
  This is the most significant national security issue of our age, and 
it is being mishandled apparently to secure a legacy for the 
administration. Thus, it is all the more important to assert a vigorous 
congressional role before we are burdened with a bad agreement that 
does little to prevent a nuclear Iran.
  These negotiations with Iran began by yielding on the central issue. 
They now continue, while ignoring the proper, essential role of 
Congress, and it appears they are aimed at achieving a legacy for the 
Obama administration rather than enhancing national security.
  Most serious and dangerous of all is the strategic vacuum in which 
these Iran negotiations are taking place. Their failure will force us 
to face that void, and when we do, we must then return to the world 
that existed before these misguided negotiations began.
  We will have to renew and reinforce our efforts to impose crippling 
sanctions on Iran. We will have to redouble our efforts to bring our 
allies and friends along with us, preventing the carefully constructed 
international sanctions regimes from slipping. And now we must find 
ways to limit the damage being done by an irresponsible Russia, already 
signing deals with Iran worth billions of dollars.
  Unfortunately, and most challenging of all, we must find a way to 
make the threat of using military force as a last resort credible, but 
that will not be easy. Our Nation is militarily, politically, 
economically, and emotionally exhausted by wars, and now we have been 
forced to embark on yet another.
  Americans are justifiably repulsed by and fixated on the more 
immediate chaos of televised beheadings. A more abstract future threat 
of a nuclear Iran is beyond the horizon of most Americans, and the 
ayatollahs are counting on that. It is one of the many ways that the 
conflicts in Iraq and Syria are connected to our Iranian dilemma.
  Coping with all of that at once is what leadership is all about. Four 
American Presidents, including our current President, have declared 
that a nuclear-weapons-capable Iran is unacceptable. I will repeat 
that: Four American Presidents, including this current President, have 
declared that a nuclear-weapons-capable Iran is unacceptable.
  To give meaning to that repeated commitment and to do whatever is 
necessary to prevent Iran from getting that dangerous capability is the 
most urgent matter facing the United States and international security. 
A robust uranium-enrichment industry in Iran means a capability to 
produce nuclear weapons within an unacceptably brief amount of time.
  The consequences of a nuclear-weapons-capable Iran are not tolerable, 
not acceptable, and must motivate the most powerful and effective 
efforts possible to prevent it from happening. That is our challenge. 
That is the role of the Senate. So we must insist on playing a 
significant role in the examination of whatever is being done and 
whatever might be put before us so we can examine it carefully and not 
repeat the mistakes of the past as we have with the North Koreans.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page 16642]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, on Tuesday evening Senator Inhofe and I 
announced that we had reached an agreement with the chairman and the 
ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee on a new national 
defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2015. The text of the bill 
and report were published on the Web site of the House Rules Committee 
that evening, and on Wednesday morning we put out a press release 
detailing the provisions of the bill.
  The bill passed the House earlier this afternoon by a vote of 300 to 
119, and we expect to take it up in the Senate next week.
  Our bill includes hundreds of important provisions to authorize the 
activities of the Department of Defense and provide for the well-being 
of our men in uniform and their families. The bill will enable the 
military services to continue paying special pays and bonuses which are 
needed for recruitment and retention of key personnel. It provides 
continued impact aid to support military families and local school 
districts. It strengthens survivor benefits for disabled children of 
servicemembers. It includes provisions addressing the employment of 
military spouses, job placement for veterans, and military child 
custody disputes. It addresses military hazing, military suicides, 
post-traumatic stress disorder, and mental health problems in the 
military. And it includes 20 provisions to continue to build on the 
progress we are starting to make in addressing the scourge of sexual 
assault in the military.
  The bill provides continued funding and authorities for ongoing 
operations in Afghanistan and for our forces conducting operations 
against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, so-called ISIS. As 
requested by the administration, it authorizes the Department of 
Defense to train and equip vetted members of the moderate Syrian 
opposition and to train and equip national and local forces who are 
actively fighting ISIS in Iraq. It establishes a counterterrorism 
partnership fund to provide the administration new flexibility in 
addressing emerging terrorist threats around the world.
  In addition, the bill extends the Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa 
Program, providing for 4,000 new visas, and addresses a legal glitch 
that precluded members of the ruling parties in Kurdistan from 
receiving visas under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
  Our bill takes steps to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine by 
authorizing $1 billion for a European reassurance initiative to enhance 
the U.S. military presence in Europe and build partner capacity to 
respond to security threats of which no less than $75 million would be 
committed for activities and assistance to support Ukraine, by 
requiring a review of the U.S. and NATO force posture, readiness, and 
contingency plans in Europe, and by expressing support for both lethal 
and nonlethal military assistance to Ukraine.
  The bill adds hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to improve 
the readiness of our Armed Forces across all branches--Active, Guard, 
and Reserve--to help blunt some of the negative effects of 
sequestration. It includes provisions addressing the threat of cyber 
warfare, providing woman-owned small businesses the same sole-source 
contracting authority that is already available to other categories of 
small businesses, expanding the No Contracting With the Enemy Act to 
all government agencies, and requiring governmentwide reform of 
information technology acquisition. And although we were unable to 
bring the Senate-reported bill--a bill that was reported by our 
committee--to the floor for amendment, we established an informal 
clearing process, pursuant to which we were able to clear 44 Senate 
amendments--roughly an equal number on each side of the aisle--and to 
include them in our new bill.
  When the bill comes to the floor, I will have a lot more to say about 
some of the more difficult issues in the bill, such as provisions 
addressing military compensation reform, Army force structure, and 
Guantanamo detainees, as well as the so-called lands package that we 
included in our bill based on a bipartisan, bicameral request of the 
committees of jurisdiction.
  I hope our colleagues will take the opportunity to review our bill. 
It is obviously a long bill. There are going to be enough days, we 
believe, to review the bill so our colleagues can have a fair 
opportunity to see what is in our bill. We are proud of the bill. We 
think it is a good bill. It would be the 42nd or 43rd straight year we 
will have passed a military authorization bill, a Defense authorization 
bill, if we are able to pass the bill next week.
  I hope our colleagues will take the opportunity over the next few 
days to review the bill and hopefully give it the kind of broad support 
it deserves and that it received today in the House of Representatives.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

                          ____________________