[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17533-17565]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   PROTECTING VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS AND EMERGENCY RESPONDERS ACT OF 
                            2014--Continued


                       Coast Guard Authorization

  Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, I will be brief, but I want to thank 
both Senators on the floor, Senators Boxer and Vitter, for working on 
this issue. It was critical for Alaska's fishermen and really for 
fishermen across the country. More importantly this will resolve the 
issue with the Coast Guard bill, which is critical to get done for many 
other reasons.
  First, on the discharge issue, as stated earlier, this is an 
important waiver for our fishermen in Alaska. This will ensure that a 
regulation that wasn't going to have any positive impact with regards 
to what they were attempting to do but would have a negative impact in 
regards to our fishermen--giving them a 3-year waiver is exceptional 
because every year we would have a 1-year waiver. So a 3-year waiver is 
fantastic, but I agree with Senator Boxer that this should be 
permanent. I would like to watch from the outside in to see how this 
develops over the years.
  The Coast Guard authorization bill was critical to get done. This has 
many important provisions. As the chair of the committee that dealt 
with the Coast Guard bill, not only this year but 2 years ago, we have 
been successful now at least since I have been chair to ensure the bill 
passed by unanimous consent and not to have big fights over working out 
the differences. Again, I thank Senator Vitter for his effort, making 
sure we move forward on this piece of legislation.
  The issue I want to highlight--and then I will close--is that the 
Coast Guard bill is not only important for our fishermen in Alaska, the 
79 feet and under ships, but also many other things. It ensures 
additional resources for the Arctic and Antarctic and ensures ice-
breaking capabilities, including extending the service life of the 
currently idled Polar Sea. It enhances vessel safety information 
regarding ice and weather conditions and improves the oil spill 
prevention and response capabilities. It also ensures availability of 
quality childcare for our Coast Guard personnel. We require Coast Guard 
personnel to go all over this country. Part of it is their families are 
obviously with them and making sure they have quality of life aspects 
that are important for us to continue to recruit and get the best of 
the best. It also creates educational and portable career opportunities 
for Active-Duty Coast Guard spouses and eases the transition for Coast 
Guard personnel into postservice life. It provides inflation adjustment 
for funding levels for something very important to us in Alaska, the 
Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Committee. This group of citizens 
is involved in ensuring that the community at Cook Inlet--there is a 
lot of oil activity and fishing activity and other types of activities 
that are in that region--and citizens are engaged in their input. It is 
not just industry, but it is industry and citizens working together. 
This ensures that their funding continues and is inflation adjusted for 
the future. That is important.
  Lastly, a small item, but it allows the Commandant to issue leases on 
tidelands and submerged lands. That is important because there are 
parcels of property that the Coast Guard controls that are adjacent to 
communities, and we need to make sure that there is flexibility for 
them to do the work they need to do. This piece of legislation was 
cosponsored by Senator Rockefeller, Senators Thune, Rubio, Maria 
Cantwell and many others. This truly is a bipartisan piece of 
legislation and an example of what we do best when we work together.
  Imagine a piece of legislation such as this, an authorization 
legislation for one of our large agencies, the Coast Guard, now the 
second time happening without a big fight on the floor, without this 
back and forth between the House and Senate, but actually getting the 
work done so our Coast Guard personnel know they have a budget that 
improves upon their quality of life issues and in my case in Alaska, 
making sure the Arctic is taken care of. We

[[Page 17534]]

also increased and made sure the Coast Guard ongoing replacement 
programs are there, with $1.5 billion to continue to increase and 
improve the Coast Guard programs for our country, which is also very 
important.
  Again, I want to thank the body, thank the folks on both sides of the 
aisle. As chair of the committee, it was my honor to be able to move 
this forward, but also I want to give a special thanks to all my staff 
members who worked on this because without the Senate staff who 
participated in this work, we could not have gotten the work done. I 
appreciate that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                              Immigration

  Mr. VITTER. Thank you, Madam President. I rise today to express 
strong concern and opposition to President Obama's Executive amnesty, 
which I think is clearly, flat-out illegal and unconstitutional.
  I announce that because of that I will be voting ``no'' on the 
confirmation of Loretta Lynch to become Attorney General--because she 
would directly help President Obama execute that illegal Executive 
amnesty, and she would be actively giving him legal cover, if you 
will--bad legal reasoning--used for PR purposes to further that illegal 
Executive order. I urge all my colleagues who share my concern about 
this illegal Executive amnesty to do the same.
  I strongly oppose President Obama's recent action for two reasons. 
The first is I think it is a horrible policy that is going to take a 
desperate situation of illegal immigration into this country--a 
situation that has truly reached crisis proportions, including over the 
last several months with these new waves, for instance, of illegal 
minors--and make that desperate situation much worse.
  Why do I say that? Well, it is common sense. If you take a big action 
that is going to reward folks who have participated in that illegal 
crossing, what do you think you are going to get--more of it or less of 
it? If you reward behavior, you are going to get more of it; if you 
punish or stop behavior, you will get less of it. So on policy grounds, 
this Executive action--this illegal Executive amnesty for about 5 
million illegal aliens in our country--is going to reward that behavior 
and produce more of it.
  As we have proved, we don't have adequate protections at the border--
an adequate system of enforcement in place either at the border or just 
as importantly at the workplace. It is horrible policy that is going to 
make the situation worse.
  But the second concern I have is much more fundamental, and it goes 
to the constitutional authority of the President and the fact that this 
is clearly beyond his authority because he is acting contrary to 
statutory law. The Congress and the President have acted together in 
the past and laid out statutory law about immigration. This is clearly 
directly contrary to statutory law because the President through this 
Executive action is not simply saying: I am going to refuse to 
prosecute this case or that case or even a broad category of cases. He 
is going even further and saying: I am going to issue work permits to 
affirmatively say that these people can work legally in our country, to 
affirmatively say that employers can hire these people, even though 
that is directly contrary to all sorts of statutory law on the books 
now.
  Every President in the United States has significant powers, 
obviously, and Presidents have the power to fill in the details of 
legislation when those details are not clear and when they need to do 
so to properly execute the law. But that is completely different from 
doing something contrary to statutory law, and that is what President 
Obama is doing here.
  Several people directly involved in this--including the Supreme 
Court, including President Obama, ironically--have made this clear: The 
Supreme Court in the past has recognized that ``over no conceivable 
subject is the power of Congress more complete'' than over immigration. 
So the Supreme Court has said that in all subject matters of law across 
the board, immigration is squarely in the hands of Congress under the 
Constitution.
  As I said, even more interesting, President Obama in the past, before 
this illegal Executive order, has said he doesn't have this power. He 
has repeatedly acknowledged that in the past before he took this 
action. He said: ``This notion that somehow I can just change the laws 
unilaterally is just not true.''
  Furthermore he said: ``For me to simply, through Executive order 
ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my 
appropriate role as President.''
  That is what he said when he was defending not taking action before, 
and he was right. Now he has done exactly what he correctly said before 
he did not have the power to do.
  As I suggested at the beginning of my remarks, the Attorney General 
is directly related to this immigration issue and this legal 
constitutional issue. The Attorney General is the top law enforcement 
officer of the United States. The Attorney General is the top legal 
expert for the President and for the Federal Government. So I think if 
we truly believe--as I do and as certainly my Republican colleagues and 
as several Democrats do, based on their public statements--that this 
Executive action is wrong, is unconstitutional, is illegal, then we 
should not confirm an Attorney General who is going to further that 
illegal unconstitutional course of action. To me that is very 
straightforward. This is not just grabbing someone out of the blue. The 
Attorney General is directly--directly--related to these issues of the 
constitutional bounds of law, the constitutional lines between the 
executive and the legislative--and immigration enforcement. Based on 
that, I will vote no, and I will strongly push against the confirmation 
of Loretta Lynch as attorney general, and I urge my colleagues to do 
the same.
  If you believe that President Obama's actions are illegal or 
unconstitutional through executive amnesty, then I think you need to 
reach the same conclusion, but the attorney general is directly related 
to these issues of both immigration enforcement and the Constitution.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Massachusetts.


                            Financial System

  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I come to the floor today to ask a 
fundamental question: Who does Congress work for? Does it work for the 
millionaires, the billionaires, the giant companies with their armies 
of lobbyists and lawyers, or does it work for all the people?
  People are frustrated with Congress and part of the reason, of 
course, is gridlock, but mostly it is because they see a Congress that 
works just fine for the big guys, but it won't lift a finger to help 
them. If big companies can deploy armies of lobbyists and lawyers to 
get the Congress to vote for special deals that benefit themselves, 
then we simply confirm the view of the American people that the system 
is rigged.
  Now the House of Representatives is about to show us the worst of 
government for the rich and powerful. The House is about to vote on a 
budget deal--a deal negotiated behind closed doors--that slips in a 
provision that would let derivative traders on Wall Street gamble with 
taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky 
bets threaten to blow up our financial system. These are the same banks 
that nearly broke the economy in 2008 and destroyed millions of jobs, 
the same banks that got bailed out by taxpayers and are now raking in 
record profits, the same banks that are spending a whole lot of time 
and money trying to influence Congress to bend the rules in their 
favor.
  You will hear a lot of folks say that the rule that will be repealed 
in the omnibus is technical and complicated and you shouldn't worry 
about it because smart people who know more than you do about financial 
issues say it is no big deal. Well, don't believe them. Actually, this 
rule is pretty simple. Here is what it is called--the rule

[[Page 17535]]

the House is about to repeal, and I am quoting from the text of Dodd-
Frank, is entitled ``Prohibition Against Federal Government Bailouts of 
Swaps Entities.''
  What does it do? The provision that is about to be repealed requires 
the banks to keep separate a key part of their risky Wall Street 
speculation so there is no government insurance for that part of their 
business. As the New York Times has explained, ``the goal was to 
isolate risky trading and to prevent government bailouts'' because 
these sorts of risky trades, called derivatives trades, were ``a main 
culprit in the 2008 financial crisis.''
  We put these rules in place after the collapse of the financial 
system because we wanted to reduce the risk that reckless gambling on 
Wall Street could ever again threaten jobs and livelihoods on Main 
Street. We put this rule in place because people of all political 
persuasions were disgusted at the idea of future bailouts. And now, no 
debate, no discussion, Republicans in the House of Representatives are 
threatening to shut down the government if they don't get a chance to 
repeal it.
  That raises a simple question: Why? If this rule brings more 
stability to our financial system and helps prevent future government 
bailouts, why in the world would anyone want to repeal it, let alone 
hold the entire government hostage in order to ram through this appeal? 
The reason, unfortunately, is simple--it is about money and power. 
Because while this legal change could pose serious risks to our entire 
economy, it will also make a lot of money for Wall Street banks.
  According to Americans for Financial Reform, this change will be a 
huge boon to a handful of our biggest banks--Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, 
and Bank of America.
  Wall Street spends a lot of time and money on Congress. Public 
Citizen and the Center for Responsive Politics found that in the runup 
to Dodd-Frank, the financial services sector employed 1,447 former 
Federal employees to carry out their lobbying efforts, including 73 
former Members of Congress.
  According to a report by the Institute for America's Future, by 2010, 
the six biggest banks and their trade associations employed 243 
lobbyists who once worked in the Federal Government, including 33 who 
worked as chiefs of staff for Members of Congress and 54 who worked as 
staffers for the banking oversight committees in the House and Senate. 
That is a lot of former government employees and Senators and 
Congressmen pounding on Congress to make sure that the big banks get 
heard.
  It is no surprise that the financial industry spent more than $1 
million a day lobbying Congress on financial reform, and that is a lot 
of money that went to former elected officials and government 
employees. Now we see the fruits of those investments.
  This provision is all about goosing the profits of the big banks. 
Wall Street is not subtle about this one. According to documents 
reviewed by the New York Times, the original bill that is being 
incorporated into the House spending legislation today was literally 
written by Citigroup lobbyists who ``redrafted'' the legislation, 
``striking out certain phrases and inserting others.'' It has been 
opposed by current and former leaders of the FDIC, including Sheila 
Bair, a Republican who formerly chaired the agency, and Thomas Hoenig, 
the current vice chairman of the agency. For those who are keeping 
score, this is the agency that will be responsible for bailing out Wall 
Street when their risky bets go south.
  I know that House and Senate negotiators from both parties have 
worked long and hard to come to an agreement on the omnibus spending 
legislation, and Senate leaders deserve great credit for preventing the 
House from carrying out some of their more aggressive fantasies about 
dismantling even more pieces of financial reform, but this provision 
goes too far. Citigroup is large and powerful, but it is a single, 
private company. It should not get to hold the entire government 
hostage to threaten a government shutdown in order to roll back 
important protections that keep our economy safe. This is a democracy, 
and the American people didn't elect us to stand up for Citigroup, they 
elected us to stand up for all the people.
  I urge my colleagues in the House--particularly my Democratic 
colleagues whose votes are essential to moving this package forward--to 
withhold support from it until this risky giveaway is removed from the 
legislation. We all need to stand and fight this giveaway to the most 
powerful banks in this country.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.


                        Criminal Justice System

  Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I rise today to discuss an issue that I 
believe should be discussed and worked on so much more in Congress. It 
demands an urgency of action, a dedication, and a focus to address our 
shortfalls as a nation to live up to our ideals, liberty and justice 
for all. Equal justice under the law is written on the Supreme Court, 
and is a theme of our Nation.
  It is the source of anguish that I believe is driving protests all 
over our country right now. From Ferguson to Staten Island, from New 
Jersey to Oakland, citizens of all races and all backgrounds--Americans 
are joining together to call for change, and to have this idea that our 
legal system really should be a justice system.
  Now this is an anguish that is not simply the result and the reaction 
to specific incidents. Yes, there is much discussion about those 
specific incidents in places such as Staten Island, but it is a 
reflection of a deeper anguish, an unfinished American business that 
has lasted for decades.
  I feel in my own personal life this sense of gratitude for my unique 
upbringing. As a young man in 1969, my parents literally had to get a 
white couple to pose as them to buy the house I grew up in in New 
Jersey. They literally had to go through the indignity of trying to 
break barriers of race to move into a town that was all white at the 
time.
  I stand here to tell you I grew up in the greatest place. The 
citizens of Harrington Park, NJ, are why I am standing here right now. 
The love and caring that exists in my State is remarkable.
  I am also here today because of a city that is a majority Black city, 
Newark, NJ, that embraced me as a young professional, and where I 
eventually became mayor.
  Through my unique position, I have to say I am able to understand all 
corners of this country. In an intimate way, I see this anguish that I 
speak of with so many of my friends and colleagues. I heard it here in 
the Senate. I have had security guards pull me aside to talk to me 
about their anguish and frustrations about the criminal justice system. 
I have had the people who do the work in this body--those who clean our 
floors or tend to the needs of our Senators--and they feel this 
frustration about an American legal system that is falling short of 
American ideals and is not a justice system.
  I saw it with my own parents who, with agony and pain, talked to me 
about not having a margin of error when it comes to dealing with police 
officers. They would coach me on how I should speak and talk and what I 
should do with my hands because of the fears they had of the treatment 
I might have that would be different than other Americans.
  I stand today because this cannot simply be reduced to a racial 
issue. This is the larger questions of justice in our country. This 
calls to the consciousness of all Americans, and it is sourced by the 
realities we face in this country where we lead the globe in areas that 
no American who believes in freedom and liberty should want to lead.
  We have had over the last decades of my lifetime an explosion in 
incarceration that belies the truth of who we are. This Nation has seen 
this country have an 800-percent increase in the Federal prison 
population over the last 30 years. Think about that--an 800-percent 
increase. We now have the very ignominious distinction on the globe for 
leading the planet Earth in a country

[[Page 17536]]

that incarcerates its own citizens. In fact, America is just 5 percent 
of the globe's population, but we have 25 percent of the world's 
imprisoned people, and I tell you that is not because Americans have a 
greater proclivity for criminality, it is because our legal system is 
not a justice system.
  This overincarceration and overcriminality anguishes this Nation, 
aggravates divisions, undermines freedom and liberty and costs 
taxpayers so much more money. It is an unnecessary burden and expense 
that is a self-inflicted wound in this Nation that undermines our 
prosperity and our success. We spend $\1/4\ trillion a year locking 
people up, and the majority of those people are nonviolent offenders.
  In fact, over the last decade, right now in America there are more 
people in prison for drug offenses than all of the people in prison in 
the 1970s. It is an extraordinary fact. Whether you are Black or White, 
if you get arrested and charged with a felony crime for doing some 
things that the last three Presidents of the United States admitted to 
doing, and then tried and convicted--I say ``tried'' with hesitancy 
because the majority of them are plea bargains. As the President knows, 
if you get convicted of that felony offense, the nondrug violent 
offense, the collateral consequences to your life are horrendous.
  We now live in a nation where the collateral consequences are 
profound. We now know that time behind bars, even for these nonviolent 
offenders, reduces people's hourly wages by 11 percent, their annual 
employment by 9 weeks, their annual earnings by 40 percent. It has a 
powerful economic impact.
  If a person is convicted for possession of controlled substances use, 
they become ineligible for so many benefits that we would often think 
we would want these very people to have. They can't get Federal 
education grants such as a Pell grant. They can't get loans or work 
assistance. They become ineligible for business licenses, outrageously 
so. A person convicted of a felony will be denied public housing, even 
the ability to visit their family in public housing. They could be 
kicked out of their current housing arrangements. Former inmates can't 
get jobs, shelter, or loans. They often feel that no option exists 
other than going back to that slippery slope toward more crime. That is 
for all the people within the criminal system.
  But what is anguishing so many is the clear and undeniable 
applications of this criminal justice system and the applications of 
this legal system in unequal ways to different portions of our 
population.
  In my life I have seen that firsthand--how the usage of drugs in 
different communities where there is no difference between Blacks and 
Whites is treated differently based upon their race or their 
socioeconomic status.
  Let me be clear. These issues are American issues, not simply race 
issues. They affect us all because we are a nation with a profound 
declaration of independence, but the truth of our country speaks also 
to an interdependence. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice 
everywhere.
  I point out these facts to let you understand why we have to have 
such an urgency. African Americans and Whites have no difference in 
drug usage whatsoever, but an African American who chooses to use 
marijuana is 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for that usage than 
someone who is White.
  In fact, between 2007 and 2009, drug sentences for African-American 
men were 13.1 percent longer than those for White men. Usage has no 
difference, but arrest rates are dramatically higher for African-
American men. In fact, for all crimes, when you start breaking the 
actual data down, you see patterns of discriminatory impact that are 
unacceptable in a nation this great.
  Even for police violence, we have to understand that today nearly 2.5 
times more Whites are arrested than Blacks for crimes that are violent 
and nonviolent--2.5 times more arrests for Whites than Blacks, but 
somehow African Americans are 21 more times more likely to be shot dead 
by a police officer.
  This is data that should not shock us along racial lines but shock us 
along American lines. We are the Nation of liberty and justice for all. 
We are the country of equal protection under the law. African Americans 
make up just 13 percent of our population but 40 percent of the prison 
population.
  In New Jersey, African Americans are 13.7 percent of New Jersey's 
population but 62 percent of New Jersey's prison population. Much of 
that, as clearly the data shows, has come about through the persecution 
of the American drug policy that is applied to different groups and 
different effects. The reality for minorities is punishing. By the age 
of 23, 44 percent of Latino youth will be arrested. We know the sad 
reality that 1 in 3 black males born in America today can expect, if we 
make no changes, to be incarcerated at some point in their lives 
compared to 1 in 87 White males, ages 18 to 64, incarcerated, while 1 
in every 12 Blacks is.
  I struggled with these issues my whole life. As a mayor of a city 
constantly working to fight to protect citizens, I know how complicated 
these problems can be. My police department, ourselves, we dug into the 
data. We saw that our practices had to be changed, that we had to find 
better ways of keeping our community safe, but we also knew something 
deeper. I will never forget when I sat with the head of the FBI in 
Newark, and I asked him about the violent crime problem: How are we 
going to solve this problem?
  He looked at me and said: You don't understand, Mayor. We--meaning 
law enforcement--are not going to solve this problem. What has to be 
done are changes greater than this.
  I watched how young kids get arrested for breaking the law, for 
smoking marijuana or being caught with possession. Teenagers find 
themselves--because they have marijuana on them of a certain amount and 
weight so the charges increase, to being in a school zone which is 
every place in many cities--now facing mandatory minimums of upwards of 
5 years. These teenagers are scared, afraid, knowing they broke the 
law, but other folks like the last three Presidents have gotten away 
with it. They get offered it by the prosecutor, overworked, trying hard 
to serve the public and keep people safe. The prosecutor doesn't give 
them the mandatory minimum, they give them a deal: Just take time 
served or a month or 6 months, but they find themselves with a felony 
conviction. Now they find themselves in a world where they think they 
have no options. They can't get jobs. They can't get education grants. 
They can't get hope.
  Hopelessness is a toxic state of being, and those kids then often get 
caught up again into the underground economy, back into the world of 
drugs.
  What we saw in my time as mayor is that so many of the people who 
ultimately end up being violent criminals started as kids who felt all 
their options closed in on them because they got caught up in this 
world of drugs.
  One of the worst collateral consequences of the way we are going 
about prosecuting our criminal legal system is the violence we are 
seeing from people who think they have no options but to do what they 
are doing.
  I say this all to simply say we must find a way out. If we are 
America, a system that believes in elevating human potential and 
believes in ideas of liberty and freedom and deplores this concept that 
government should take people's liberty for no good means, we have to 
do something about this issue.
  We who believe in freedom, who tell the world to look at our light 
and our torch and our promise, should evidence something better than 
leading the globe in incarcerating our own citizens. We, this country, 
where generation after generation has conquered discrimination against 
Irish, has conquered discrimination against Italians, has beat back 
discrimination against Catholics, has stood up to discrimination 
against Jews, has fought against Jim Crow and slavery; advancing not 
toward Black ideals or Jewish ideals or Irish ideals, but the common 
ideals that bind us as brothers and sisters of justice, of freedom, of 
equality--we

[[Page 17537]]

have to do better than lead the globe in incarceration, to have a legal 
system that subjects more of its people and minorities toward search 
and scrutiny than seizure and arrest. This we cannot tolerate.
  Why I stand so confidently with a faith in my Nation that we can do 
better does not just stem from this hallowed history. It also stems 
from the President. Right now in America there are States doing 
incredible things, incredible things, to change away this reality.
  I am proud of my State. We have gone far but not far enough. In New 
Jersey, between 1999 and 2012, we reduced our prison population 26 
percent. Guess what. During that same period of time, New Jersey saw a 
30-percent reduction in violent crime. We showed to America that we are 
better than this. We can give more liberty to people, lowering our 
prison population, having a disproportionate effect on minorities, and 
actually drive down crime as well.
  We are not the only State. New York's prison population is down 24 
percent from the late 1990s. This is due almost entirely to reforms of 
the Rockefeller drug laws, policies that sent thousands of people to 
prison often serving sentences for low-level crimes. Over that same 
period, New York reduced its crime by more than half, lowering prison 
populations, disproportionately affecting African Americans and Latinos 
and lowering crimes.
  Texas reduced its prison population in 2013 dramatically and has seen 
decreases in both crime and recidivism rates. All of these States can 
do more, but why has the Federal Government done little to nothing to 
follow suit?
  I am proud of what is going on in the Senate with many of my 
colleagues. I came and joined this body when people pulled together to 
begin legislation such as the Smarter Sentencing Act or, more recently, 
the REDEEM Act I did in partnership with Rand Paul.
  I am so proud that this issue cuts across political sides, that we 
have Democrats and Republicans, red States and blue States, all 
beginning to say we can do better. I am here today to end my remarks 
with that call to the consciousness of our country. If we have an 
injustice in our midst with a legal system that is so far away from the 
justice system to which we should aspire, we have to do better.
  I was raised to believe that injustice anywhere is a threat to 
justice everywhere. In the words of Langston Hughes: ``There's a dream 
in this land with its back against the wall; to save the dream for one, 
we must save the dream for all.''
  I know in my heart that with anguish of millions of Americans being 
punished by a legal system that has gone way out of control, affecting 
Blacks and Whites, young people of all backgrounds, a legal system that 
patently has a discriminatory impact on minorities, a legal system that 
steals the people's liberty, we can do better than this. We can save 
taxpayer money. We can lower our prison incarceration rates. We can 
elevate the promise of so many now denied their promise, and we can 
celebrate our American ideals. We need to lead this globe, not in 
incarceration, by telling the truth of who we are; that America is a 
land of freedom, of justice, where there truly is liberty and justice 
for all.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.


                            EPA Regulations

  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about 
regulation today. We end this Congress failing once again for the 
Congress to take more responsibility for regulation. Items such as the 
REINS Act, which I have sponsored with Senator Paul and others and 
which would require Members of Congress to vote on regulations that had 
significant economic impact did not get done.
  A bill that I introduced with Senator King from Maine that would 
create a regulatory review process that got great reviews in every 
economic and many other papers and magazines did not get done. But what 
I am seeing in Missouri and around the country is more and more concern 
that begins to focus on the Congress not doing what it needs to do to 
keep the regulators under control--legislation that would routinely put 
an end date on every regulation so that regulation has to be reviewed 
and regulation has to come up again and be looked at. Frankly, if you 
combined that with the requirement for the Senate and the House to vote 
on that regulation, it would be very unlikely that regulations that no 
longer made sense would be presented another time--having to look at 
this in a way that makes sense for our economy.
  One of the generally used estimates is that $2 trillion is spent 
every year in the United States complying with regulations. Well, let's 
assume that maybe as much as half of that--it could be more--is either 
duplicative or simply unnecessary. What would happen in our economy if 
we had $1 trillion chasing the future rather than trying to needlessly 
comply with things that no longer make sense.
  We have to take more responsibility for that because frankly there is 
no other way to get our hands on the regulators. The regulators are 
often out of control and almost always unaccountable. Frankly, they are 
more unaccountable in the second term of a President than they are in 
the first term because nobody in the chain of command ever has to go 
back and answer to the people we work for about the cost of these 
regulations.
  I know in my State of Missouri, people are really concerned about a 
couple of regulations out there now that are dealing with energy policy 
and water policy, regulations the EPA has imposed that really do not 
make sense when you look at the cost of those regulations versus what 
would be gained by the regulations if they were even possible to comply 
with.
  I think a clear message was sent in November to the next Congress 
that people want the government to be more responsive, that people want 
the government to--when you have a cost-benefit analysis of something 
the government has done, make it a realistic analysis, make it an 
analysis that would stand the straight-face test, when you say, oh, 
this is not the emotional cost of worrying about some societal problem 
that you really cannot quite define, this is what it really costs 
American families in terms of, for instance, their utility bill.
  We look at these regulations that frankly go beyond the capacity of 
the regulators. I am not suggesting that the Congress is the right 
place to draft most regulations. I would say that the process of 
passing a law and saying that we want this agency to figure out how to 
implement the law is, in fact, the right way to do that. But I would 
also suggest that then that agency has to come back to the Congress and 
say: Here is the regulation that we think is the proper implementation. 
Now you have to vote yes or no. This regulation is the way to go 
forward with this law.
  I think often the regulators now are well beyond what the law allows 
them to do. There is a case in point I am going to talk about in a 
minute, the water rule that is out there, where a navigable water was 
used as a definition of where the EPA had some jurisdiction. Well, I 
think their view right now is well beyond ``navigable.'' So what would 
we do about that? There is the ENFORCE the Law Act that I introduced in 
the Senate and that the House passed months ago with a bipartisan vote, 
where the Congress would have standing in court to be able to go to 
court if either House of the Congress thought the President was not 
enforcing the law as intended, so that the Congress--which now cannot 
go to court and say that we want a third party to step in right now and 
define this principle--could go to court and say that we want to know 
right now what ``navigable'' meant in 1972 when it was put into law, in 
the early 1970s, what it meant in 1899 when it was used for the first 
time, and what it means today.
  There is no reason to have a couple of years of trying to comply with 
a regulation when eventually the Supreme Court will say, as they did a 
handful of times last year, that the Federal Government does not have 
jurisdiction to do this or that people were appointed

[[Page 17538]]

illegally to a board or commission and that all of the actions they 
took had to be set aside. This is not a hypothetical case. This is what 
the Court decided just last year. The ENFORCE the Law Act would give us 
the capacity not to require a citizen to have to bear the burden of 
looking at a regulation that is outside the law or does not make sense 
and would allow the Congress to actually participate in that process at 
a much earlier time. So I hope in the next Congress we will do in the 
Senate what the House did and pass something like the ENFORCE the Law 
Act. I certainly intend to introduce that legislation again, put it on 
the President's desk, and have that discussion.
  The administration recently took the opportunity to roll out a new 
rule on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This was an estimate of--
this was a rule on air matter, ozone. A new ozone rule came out the 
Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Believe me, if you have a rule that you 
think people are going to like, you do not put it out the Wednesday 
afternoon before Thanksgiving. This is like the--we always watch late 
Friday afternoon what comes out because that is what whoever is 
announcing it did not want to announce on Monday. Even a bigger day is 
the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We have an air rule now that we have 
not achieved. We have made great strides in the right direction, but 
looking at where we are now on this rule and mercury in the air and the 
quality of the air, we would have to have at least 75- to 85-percent 
attainment in counties all over America before you could then raise the 
bar one more time.
  This would take the 75-percent standard, or the 75 standard that we 
have now for particulate matter--the so-called MACT Standards--and 
reduce it even further. We are not in attainment with the first rule 
yet. In fact, the EPA just recently, years after the rule, put out the 
guidelines you would need that were helpful to try to achieve the rule. 
But as soon as you get the guidelines for the last rule, the EPA wants 
to say: Oh, here we want to talk about the next rule, even though we 
just now told you how to begin to think about complying with the last 
rule. Even though there are nonattainment areas all over the country, 
we want to move right beyond that and go to the next rule.
  That is the kind of thing that should not be allowed to happen. 
People are still looking for good-paying jobs. They are still looking 
at a utility bill they want to make sense of. I hope the Congress can 
be a part of that. The EPA has another rule they have been asking for 
comment on, the so-called clean powerplant. Well now, who is opposed to 
that? Nobody. There is nobody who does not want clean power. In fact, 
the standards for utility powerplants have moved in a very positive 
direction in the last 10 years.
  We have made great gains. The question is, are the next gains worth 
the economic cost, if the next gains are worth people having utility 
bills they cannot pay or if the next gains are worth people not having 
jobs they would otherwise have. That is a discussion we need to have. 
You know, the wrong utility policies produce an absolute lose-lose. A 
utility bill goes up, we lose jobs that we otherwise would have, and 
they go to places that care a whole lot less about what comes out of 
the smokestack than we do.
  So the problem gets better, we lose jobs, and the country that has 
made the most positive strides in recent years is the country that pays 
the price for rules that no longer make sense. The rule that is out 
now--our State is largely coal dependent. We are the fifth most coal-
dependent State. We are about 82-percent coal dependent. Of the 1 
million comments that have been made on the rule, 305,000 of them came 
from Missouri families.
  There are 1 million comments of people talking about why this rule 
does not make sense for them. We need to be sure that we do the things 
that not only meet the legal standard but also meet the commonsense 
standard as we move forward. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an 
op-ed--an opinion editorial piece--by Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe, 
who happened to be one of President Obama's law school professors and 
who is more often a witness for the left side of an argument than for 
the right side of an argument.
  He joined the world's largest private coal company, Peabody Energy, 
to criticize the executive overreach in what the EPA is proposing as 
they propose to regulate carbon emissions from existing powerplants. 
There is a big difference if you have a rule that talks about what you 
do in the future for the utility companies than regulating what people 
have previously decided to do under the old rules.
  There is a bill out there that I am a cosponsor of that really tries 
to use the great resource we have through coal in a most effective way. 
We do not produce any coal in Missouri any more, but we used to. We do 
not have any coal mines left in our State. But we have coal-fueled 
power plants. It is not really a war on coal as far as Missourians are 
concerned; it is a war on coal-fired plants.
  If you built a plant under the old rules and, in fact, it has better 
air quality than any powerplant has ever had up until this time, as all 
of our recent plants have had, and you still have life in that plant, 
but the EPA comes in and says that now you have to meet a new standard 
with the plant you just built or you built 5 years ago, somebody has to 
pay that bill.
  There is this mythical view that well, it is big industry or it is 
manufacturing. The most laughable of all is that somehow the utility 
companies are going to pay the bill. The utility companies do not pay 
the bill. People that get a utility bill pay the bill. The people that 
are most impacted by that are the people who are having a hard time 
paying their utility bill now.
  These are bad policies. I am committed that as a Congress we should 
do more than we have been doing to accept responsibility for these 
agencies we fund, for some overall law, that no matter how much they 
are abusing it by stretching it beyond what the Congress intended, the 
Congress would have passed--nobody is out there issuing a rule and 
saying: By the way, we do not have any legal authority to do this. So 
defining that authority, being sure the rules make sense is important.
  On the power rule, on December 2 I filed comments urging that this 
rule be withdrawn and we think more carefully about the impact it has 
on jobs that have good take-home pay and about families who have a hard 
time paying their utility bill now--our retired individuals, our single 
moms or others who have a hard time paying their utility bill now. We 
need to continue to look at that.
  One other rule I want to talk about, as my time comes to a conclusion 
here, is the so-called waters of the United States rule. The EPA was 
given the authority under the Clean Water Act, as I said earlier, to 
have some authority over navigable waters. Navigable water, beginning 
in the 1890s, was used in Federal law as a constitutional explanation 
of why the Federal Government would be involved in water policy, 
because the Federal Government under the Constitution is involved in 
commerce.
  Navigable and commerce come together. Navigable actually means you 
can navigate with some sort of vessel that can carry a commercial load. 
Well, the EPA has now decided, or is in the process of proposing, at 
least, that navigable waters means any water that can run into any 
water that could run into any water that can be navigable. I am 
confident that is not what the Congress intended.
  Now, if they want to propose that, that is fine. Through the 
President and the administration, the EPA can come to Congress and say: 
We think we ought to control all the water everywhere; let's have a 
debate about that. And the Congress would not give the EPA that 
authority.
  I hope the next Congress sets as a priority taking responsibility for 
what the Federal Government does, taking responsibility for these 
regulators and regulations, being sure we have regulations where we 
need them that make sense, and that we push back and don't have 
regulations where all they do is hurt families, hurt jobs, and don't 
solve the bigger problem. I hope we see

[[Page 17539]]

that happen, and I hope the next Congress will be more focused on doing 
that job than this Congress was.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  (The remarks of Mr. Udall of New Mexico pertaining to the submission 
of S. Res. 596 are printed in today's Record under ``Submitted 
Resolutions.'')
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise today in support of the National 
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015. I commend the work of 
my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee--especially the chairman, 
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan--on reaching an agreement with the House 
to complete this important legislation.
  It is also appropriate that this legislation be named in honor of 
both Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Buck McKeon, the chairmen of 
their respective committees who this year are retiring after 
extraordinary service and dedication to the Nation and particularly to 
the men and women of the armed services. It is another reason why this 
bill is particularly special--because it represents the culmination of 
the work of these two extraordinary gentlemen.
  For over 50 consecutive years this Senate has passed a defense 
authorization bill. I hope we will be able to send the bill before us 
to the President for his signature. We owe it to our servicemembers to 
pass a law that will support them and enable the DOD to execute this 
year's budget efficiently and effectively.
  This year, once again we have had to make very difficult decisions, 
especially because of the economic circumstances we face as a nation, 
the resources, and the threats which are challenging at this moment in 
our history. But this bill will allow the Department of Defense to 
combat these current threats, plan for future threats, and provide for 
the welfare of our brave servicemembers and their families.
  While it is disappointing that we are not able to bring this bill to 
the floor for amendments in regular order because time really is 
running out, this is a very good bill which is based on the principle 
of compromise between many parties. It is critical at this moment that 
we pass it for the men and women in uniform for the United States.
  I wish to point out a few highlights of the bill.
  First, it authorizes a 1-percent across-the-board pay raise and 
reauthorizes over 30 types of bonuses and special pays for our men and 
women in uniform.
  It includes numerous provisions that build on the reforms we passed 
last year to further strengthen and improve sexual assault prevention 
and response programs. It is unacceptable and it is completely 
antithetical to the ethic of the military that anyone in uniform would 
be a predator. To be a soldier, to be a marine, to be a sailor, to be 
an airmen--it is about your subordinates, your comrades, helping them 
and sacrificing for them, not using them. So we can do more, and we 
must do more, but I am pleased to see that we have taken important 
steps and we are following through on these steps.
  The legislation in general improves the ability of the Armed Forces 
to counter emerging and nontraditional threats, particularly cyber 
warfare. This is a new dimension of warfare. It is one we are coping 
with, but I don't think anyone should feel we have the technology, the 
techniques, the operations, and the insights to feel fully competent. 
This legislation will help us move in that direction.
  The legislation also authorizes the full request of $4.1 billion for 
the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund to sustain the Afghan National 
Security Forces as the U.S. and coalition forces shift our mission to 
training, advising, and assisting these forces, letting them take the 
lead in combat operations. It is very essential.
  It also authorizes several train-and-equip programs to assist foreign 
militaries conducting counterterrorism and counternarcotics operations. 
Of particular note are programs and resources that will go to Iraq and 
Syria, where we face serious challenges, where we have to provide the 
kind of support that is indicated in this legislation.
  This year I once again had the honor of serving as the chairman of 
the Seapower Subcommittee alongside Senator John McCain, the ranking 
member. Our subcommittee focused on the needs of the Navy, Marine 
Corps, and strategic mobility forces. We put particular emphasis on 
supporting Marine and Navy forces engaged in combat operations, 
improving efficiencies, and applying the savings to higher priority 
programs. Specifically, the bill includes the required funding for two 
Virginia-class submarines and a moored training ship and approves other 
major shipbuilding programs, including funding for two DDG-51 
destroyers, the aircraft carrier replacement program, and three 
littoral combat ship vessels, and it permits incremental funding for 
another amphibious transport dock ship.
  I am particularly pleased about the funding for the Virginia-class 
submarines and the DDG-1000 destroyers. So many Rhode Islanders build 
them, design them, and they are an incredible part of our national 
security. So we are reinforcing shipbuilding programs that are not only 
under budget and ahead of schedule but are vitally important to the 
security of the United States.
  Along these same lines, I am pleased to note that the bill 
establishes the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund to provide resources 
and to manage the construction of the Ohio-class replacement ballistic 
missile submarine program. According to testimony provided to the Armed 
Services Committee, the Ohio-class replacement is the Navy's highest 
priority program. We are currently constructing attack submarines. 
These submarines are designed to go against other submarines, to 
deliver special operations troops, and to conduct fire missions from 
the sea.
  The Ohio class will replace our ballistic missile submarines, which 
are part of our deterrence forces. These submarines have nuclear 
weapons and are part of our triad, our architecture to deter the use of 
nuclear weapons; we have to replace them. It cannot be done just with 
Navy resources because it is not just a Navy program, it is a national 
security program embracing our nuclear deterrence. This fund is a good 
starting point for that process, and I am very pleased to see it in the 
legislation.
  Working together with Senator McCain, particularly following Senator 
McCain's lead, this bill increases accountability for the taxpayers' 
dollars spent on several major Navy programs. For example, the bill 
includes a provision to require the Director of Operational Test and 
Evaluation to submit a report of the current LCS test and evaluation 
master plan for seaframes and mission modules. The report would provide 
an assessment of whether completion of the test and evaluation master 
plan will demonstrate operational effectiveness and operational 
suitability for both seaframes and each mission module.
  This is a very important program. We want to make sure we get it 
right. We want to make sure we build in efficiencies where we can, and 
the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation will help us do that.
  The bill also includes language that will continue support of and 
advance planning for the refueling of the USS George Washington 
aircraft carrier and preclude the Navy from spending any funds to 
inactivate this ship. Again, this goes to the congressional mandate of 
having a specified number of aircraft carrier battle groups, and 
without refueling the Washington, we will not meet that legislative 
mandate. So we hope we will go forward this year and provide the 
requisite funding to complete the refueling, but at least we are moving 
in the right direction. I think that is important.

[[Page 17540]]

  I particularly want to voice my thanks to Senator McCain and other 
members of the Seapower Subcommittee for their diligence, for their 
leadership, for their assistance in not only giving what our Navy and 
Marines need, but also making sure that the taxpayers are protected as 
best we can. And, frankly, we have to do more with respect to 
efficiencies, economies, and being wise in our allocation of resources.
  Before I conclude with my remarks regarding the traditional defense 
programs, I want to touch on two other aspects of the legislation, one 
in particular with respect to the Defense act. I am pleased that it 
includes the HAVEN Act. This is bipartisan legislation that I 
introduced with Senator Johanns to help more veterans with critical 
repairs and modifications for their homes so they are safer and more 
accessible.
  This program is directed at our disabled and low income veterans. 
They find themselves out of the service, they have benefits, but they 
have needs to fix their homes and this program will help them do that. 
It establishes a competitive pilot program allowing nonprofit 
organizations throughout the country to apply for grants administrated 
by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help make key 
improvements to the houses of veterans with disabilities, or low-income 
veterans.
  It is fitting we take this step to give back to those who have made a 
personal sacrifice for our Nation, and I am particularly delighted I 
was able to work with Senator Johanns. As I noted in my remarks 
yesterday, he is retiring, but his decency, integrity, intelligence, 
and commitment to his constituents and also to the men and women of the 
Armed Forces will be missed here.
  I am also glad that, on a topic not usually found in the defense 
authorization bill, we reached a bipartisan agreement on a package of 
public land bills, including two longstanding priorities for my State. 
For years, I have supported the preservation and renewed development of 
the Blackstone River Valley and have led the effort to designate parts 
of that area as a national park, which the bill before us will finally 
establish.
  In 1793, Samuel Slater began the American industrial revolution in 
Rhode Island when he built his historic mill on the Blackstone River--
really the first industrial-scale operation in the United States--and 
from that, much has ensued. Today, the mills and villages throughout 
what is now known as the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley 
National Heritage Corridor in Rhode Island and Massachusetts stand as 
witness to this important era of our history.
  Much credit has to go to Senator John H. Chafee, who picked up the 
ball from those who preceded him. In fact, I was told last weekend that 
this attempt to get recognition goes back as far as a letter to Lady 
Bird Johnson in the 1960s, asking if she could help get land in the 
Blackstone Valley preserved. So it has been a long and winding road, 
and John Chafee was a key person in that process.
  Creating a national historic park within the existing corridor would 
preserve the industrial, natural, and cultural heritage of the 
Blackstone Valley for future generations. It will improve the use and 
enjoyment of the natural resources, including outdoor education for 
young people; it will assist local communities while providing economic 
development opportunities; and it will increase the protection of the 
most important and nationally significant cultural and natural resource 
of the Blackstone River Valley.
  I can recall last year inviting Secretary of the Interior Sally 
Jewell to Rhode Island, and we kayaked along the Blackstone River. When 
I was young, in the 1950s and 1960s, the idea of going into the 
Blackstone River, which was then frankly an industrial waste zone, 
would have been ridiculous. Today, we not only use the Blackstone River 
for recreation but, with this national park designation, we will be 
able to do so much more.
  The public lands package also includes legislation to authorize the 
National Park Service to look at another river system in Rhode Island 
and adjacent Connecticut--specifically rivers within the Wood-Pawcatuck 
Watershed--for potential inclusion in the National Wild and Scenic 
Rivers System. These rivers are, again, so important to Rhode Island.
  One of the things you discover as you go around Rhode Island, 
particularly after a storm when you can see the true power of these 
rivers, is that development during the industrial revolution was 
centered around rivers because water was a source of energy. As a 
result, many of our communities are clustered around the rivers and 
have great historic, cultural, recreational, and environmental value.
  So let me thank not only my colleagues here but in the House, 
Congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin, for their great effort; 
also the Members of the Massachusetts delegation, because the 
Blackstone runs into Massachusetts; and I particularly want to thank 
Sheldon Whitehouse, a stalwart when it comes to all these issues--
anything to do with the environment, particularly Rhode Island's 
environment. His leadership and his support were absolutely critical in 
getting this measure today included in this bill. I would also like to 
thank the countless number of stakeholders in Rhode Island and 
Massachusetts who have tirelessly advocated for the preservation of the 
Blackstone River Valley all these years.
  We have a good national defense authorization bill before the Senate, 
and I urge all of my colleagues to support it. I look forward to being 
able to witness, even remotely, the signing of the Levin-McKeon 
national defense authorization.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                               ObamaCare

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, earlier today the former Secretary of 
Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, said there was a way to 
fix ObamaCare. She said: Change the name. She said: Change the name. 
That was her solution.
  Now that is not something she just told a friend. It is something she 
told many, as she was participating in Politico's ``Lessons From 
Leaders'' events. Well, leaders don't blame the failure of a bad 
product on a name. You can blame it on a lot of things, but the name is 
not it. After all, the President said he was fond of the name 
ObamaCare. Apparently, Kathleen Sebelius is taking a page from the 
playbook of Professor Gruber about underestimating the intelligence of 
the American people.
  This law isn't unpopular because it was named after the President. 
The law is unpopular because it doesn't work. It is unpopular because 
it doesn't deliver what the President promised the American people it 
would. So Democrats can rename this health care system whatever they 
want and people all across the country are still going to know that the 
law is failing them.
  People have been hit by higher costs--higher copays, higher premiums, 
higher deductibles. Many of them can't continue to see the doctor who 
treated them in the past. So no matter what the Democrats and Kathleen 
Sebelius want to call it, the law remains very unpopular because it is 
unworkable and it is unaffordable.
  As we head into the middle of December, next week, December 15, is 
the deadline for people to sign up on Healthcare.gov if they want to 
have their health insurance coverage starting next January--January 1--
just a few weeks from now.
  That is for people living in the 37 States that use the Federal 
health care exchange. A lot of people still haven't signed up, and they 
may learn over the next few days if they do go to the Web site to sign 
up that their health care and their insurance premiums are actually 
more expensive next year than they were this year. That is what people 
continue to see: Health care rates going up in spite of the President's 
promise.
  When President Obama was selling his health care law to the American 
people, he promised them they would save money. He actually went so far 
as to say people would save $2,500 per

[[Page 17541]]

year, per family, under his plan. And Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker 
of the House, actually went on ``Meet the Press'' and at one point 
said: Everyone's rates would go down. Everyone's rates, she said, would 
go down.
  Well, that didn't happen. Now the Obama administration finally admits 
that people are paying more, not less. Americans buying health 
insurance through the Federal exchange will see their premiums go up 
and the administration finally admits it. And that is according to a 
new report by the Department of Health and Human Services which came 
out last Thursday.
  Democrats said prices would go down, the President promised they 
would go down, and Nancy Pelosi said they would down for everyone. 
Instead, the prices keep going up.
  Here is what one person in Syracuse, NY, wrote to his local newspaper 
last week. Lawrence Petty wrote to the Syracuse Post-Standard last 
Monday, December 1. He wrote that he has a plan he bought through the 
State ObamaCare exchange. This year, the cost was about $664 a month 
for the couple. Next year, going on the exchange, the rate for the same 
plan--the same plan, because the President said if you like your plan 
you can keep it--the same plan is going up from $664 a month to $773 a 
month. That is over $1,300 extra per year. Mr. Petty asked the 
newspaper in Syracuse, NY: ``So what gives?''
  The average increase across the country is less than that, but this 
man in Syracuse, NY, is looking at a price hike of more than 17 
percent. Every Democrat in the Senate voted for the President's health 
care law--every one of them. The Democratic Senator from New York voted 
for the health care law--the very State where this man is writing to 
his newspaper in Syracuse, NY. What do they have to say to this man in 
Syracuse whose insurance premiums are going up 17 percent next year? 
How do they respond to this man who is writing to the paper in New York 
asking ``what gives''?
  Maybe his question has something to do with what the senior Senator 
from New York said a couple of weeks ago at the National Press Club, 
when he admitted that the health care law, in his words, ``wasn't the 
change we were hired to make.''
  It is not just premiums. They are not the only problem here. The 
health care law has added so many Washington mandates, so many things 
people didn't want, can't afford, aren't interested in, don't need, 
that other costs have gone up as well. That includes the money people 
have to pay out of pocket for things such as copays, their deductibles. 
Some people have actually had to delay their medical care because of 
all these additional expenses. According to a new Gallup poll last 
month, 33 percent of Americans say that over the past year they have 
put off getting medical treatment because of the cost.
  Gallup has been asking this same question all the way since 2001, 
well before the health care law was passed. And this year it is the 
highest number ever. This is after the President's health care law has 
been signed into law and has taken effect and the exchanges are in 
effect--the highest number ever of people not getting care because of 
the cost.
  Two-thirds of these people say they have put off treatment for a 
serious condition. One of them is a woman named Patricia Wanderlich. 
She is 61 years old, and she works part time at a landscaping company 
outside of Chicago, in the President's home State. She told the New 
York Times that she has a small brain aneurysm that needs monitoring.
  She tells her story in an article the New York Times published on 
October 17 under the headline ``Unable to Meet the Deductible Or the 
Doctor.'' Patricia has a health insurance plan through ObamaCare that 
has an annual deductible of $6,000, so she has to pay for most of her 
medical expenses up to that amount. Because of that, she says she is 
skipping this year's brain scan and hoping for the best. She says: ``A 
$6,000 deductible--that's just staggering.''
  This is the kind of person ObamaCare was supposed to help. And 
changing the name of ObamaCare, as Kathleen Sebelius has recommended 
today, isn't going to solve the problems for this patient with the 
$6,000 deductible. She got the insurance, she got the coverage, but she 
still cannot get care, and that is a fundamental problem with this 
health care law.
  The other thing this New York Times article points out is that people 
can't meet their deductibles, and they also can't meet their doctor. 
Patricia told the newspaper that if she switches to a policy with a 
lower deductible next year, she will get a smaller network of doctors, 
which means she will lose access to the specialists taking care of her.
  A lot of people are finding that they are in the same situation--
losing access to their doctors. Sometimes it is because the insurance 
has these narrow networks of health care providers. Sometimes it is 
just because the doctors are so overburdened that you can't get an 
appointment.
  There was an Associated Press report that came out over the weekend, 
the title was: ``Health Law Impacts Primary Care Doc Shortage.'' We 
already knew there was a shortage of primary care doctors in the 
country, also a shortage of specialists, also a shortage of nurses. The 
President's health care law has made it worse.
  The Associated Press article quoted an insurance agent in California 
named Anthony Halby, who says he has clients tell him that their 
ObamaCare plan made it extremely difficult for them to find primary 
care doctors. As he says, ``Coverage does not equal access.''
  He is advising his clients to skip ObamaCare next year and pay more 
for insurance with a broader network so they can at least see the 
doctors they want, the doctors they choose, the doctors they need.
  He tells people:

       The premiums are going to be higher because there's no 
     subsidy. However, I'm going to guarantee you can [actually] 
     keep your doctor.

  So people are finding they are paying more, when they were promised 
by President Obama, by the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that they 
would pay less. But she is the same one who said: First you have to 
pass it before you get to find out what is in it.
  So people are having to put off care they need because Washington 
says they have to pay for things they don't want, they don't need, and 
they can't afford. People are finding out that coverage isn't the same 
as care, and millions of people are finding out they can't meet their 
deductible or their doctor.
  That is not what the American people wanted from health care reform. 
People wanted access to the care they need, from a doctor they choose, 
at lower cost. That is what they wanted. Instead, what they got are all 
these new Washington mandates, all these new expenses, all these new 
problems.
  What was the President's solution to that? He said: Put more people 
on Medicaid. He told Governors around the country to expand the 
Medicaid Program--make sure people have gotten on Medicaid.
  We know that is a system that has been broken for a long time. The 
question we continue to ask is: Can somebody who has gotten a Medicaid 
card printed up and given to them or sent to them, can they actually 
see a doctor?
  The Department of Health and Human Services says: Don't worry about 
that. What did the inspector general say this week? Yesterday in the 
New York Times: ``Half of Doctors Listed as Serving Medicaid Patients 
Are Unavailable, Investigation Finds.''
  Who did the investigation? The inspector general of the Department of 
Health and Human Services.
  So even though Health and Human Services says all of these doctors 
are available to take care of Medicaid patients, their own inspector 
general of the Department says not true--not true. Only half of the 
doctors listed as serving Medicaid patients are available.
  This is what we are dealing with. That is why Republicans are going 
to vote to repeal the entire health care law. Meanwhile, we will also 
vote to

[[Page 17542]]

strip away the worst and most destructive parts of the law: things such 
as the arbitrary 30-hour workweek which has been damaging to part-time 
workers across the country; things such as the unfair medical device 
tax that sends American jobs overseas, threatens lifesaving innovation.
  The Republicans are going to talk about finally giving people 
choices. That is what people want with health care. They want choices. 
They want availability. They want affordability. That is what they are 
looking for--available, affordable care and choices, not more 
Washington mandates--and, finally, giving access to the health care 
people wanted all along.
  Kathleen Sebelius may come out and give a lecture on lessons of 
leadership. Changing the name of this health care law from ObamaCare to 
anything else isn't going to make it any better for the people across 
this country who are finding out that the President's promises were 
empty promises; that they have been intentionally deceived as to the 
way this health care law was presented and passed, and now they find 
out their insurance is less affordable, their costs of care are going 
up, the availability of that care is going down, and they have lost 
their choices.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, the bill before the Senate today at once 
represents the best of our Nation and some of the worst of Washington. 
On the one hand, the primary purpose of the National Defense 
Authorization Act, or NDAA, represents the best of America. In past 
years it has been one of the few very consistently bipartisan pieces of 
legislation considered by the Senate, and it usually has been afforded 
lengthy debate and open and transparent amendment process on the floor. 
That is because it is one of the most important and solemn duties of 
Congress to provide for our national defense.
  The United States of America has the best armed services the world 
has ever seen, not just because of what they do, but because of who 
they are: honest, courageous, selfless patriots who love our country 
and have dedicated themselves to protecting and defending our way of 
life.
  Of all the bills that come before Congress, the NDAA deserves to be 
treated with the kind of integrity and respect with which our military 
personnel approach their jobs. And yet the process that has unfolded 
this year in connection with the NDAA has fallen fall short of the 
standard that our armed personnel have set forth. Congress has waited 
until the last minute to conduct our most important business, using the 
holidays to fabricate a false sense of urgency. The Senate majority 
leader has refused to allow an open and transparent debate, shutting 
down our ability to offer amendments on the Senate floor to this 
important piece of legislation.
  Finally, only a privileged few Members of Congress have a hand in 
drafting this bill, which was cobbled together with numerous extraneous 
provisions behind closed doors.
  What used to be an exception to the typical legislative process, the 
typical legislative sausage making for which Washington has become 
famous, has been subsumed by the status quo, and it is exactly what is 
wrong with Washington today.
  Each one of us as Members of Congress is here for just one reason: We 
have been elected to represent and serve the American people. 
Unfortunately, the twisted, tainted process that has produced this bill 
prevents all of us from carrying out this responsibility, and it 
threatens our obligation to do what is right for our men and women in 
uniform.
  As the title suggests, the National Defense Authorization Act is 
supposed to be a relatively straightforward, largely noncontroversial 
bill. It is the primary legislative instrument for Congress to exercise 
its constitutional power granted in article 1, section 8 of the 
Constitution which is to provide for the common defense. But that is 
not what we are voting on today; that is not what we are considering in 
connection with this bill.
  This bill, the NDAA for fiscal year 2015, is a legislative hodgepodge 
that includes those straightforward noncontroversial items that almost 
all of us support, but also numerous other provisions that are entirely 
unrelated to national defense.
  Most egregiously, the drafters secretly added 68 unrelated bills 
pertaining to the use of Federal lands--the so-called lands package 
portion of this bill. They put that into this bill without any 
opportunity for debate or for a vote on any of those 68 independent 
bills. None of these bills were included in the version of the NDAA 
that the Senate Armed Services Committee debated and voted on in May of 
this year, because had any Member tried to include them in the normal 
process of our committee, they clearly would have been ruled out of the 
committee's jurisdiction.
  Another outlier in this legislative grab bag is a provision 
reauthorizing a Defense Department program to train and equip 
``moderate'' Syrian rebels for the next 2 years.
  Now we have testimony from some of America's top military leaders 
warning us of the immense risks involved in this program. They have 
told us there is no way to guarantee these efforts won't backfire, 
further embroiling the U.S. military in volatile and unpredictable 
parts of the world--in the Middle East, in conflicts in that part of 
the world. Yet here we are, forced to reauthorize this risky program in 
order to provide for our troops and the Defense Department.
  The authority for this program was first added to the NDAA in the 
closed committee markup process in May and then later attached to the 
must-pass spending bill in September, giving Senators the all-or-
nothing choice of either approving this controversial program or voting 
against all other government spending. This is not how Congress is 
supposed to work.
  Congress is supposed to evaluate, debate, and amend individual pieces 
of legislation based on their own merits, with enough time to inform 
and educate the American people about what their representatives are 
doing. Instead, it is politics as usual in Washington. Rather than an 
open, transparent, and inclusive process, several extraneous and 
sometimes controversial provisions were added to the NDAA at the last 
minute by a select few operating entirely behind closed doors.
  As we have come to expect from the outgoing majority in the Senate, 
once the bill appears from behind those closed doors, the American 
people are denied any real debate or even a chance to read, let alone 
understand, the bill.
  This is a shame, because there are good bipartisan amendments out 
there, such as the Due Process Guarantee Act, an amendment that Senator 
Feinstein and I attempted to offer for the Senate's consideration, 
which would improve the 2015 NDAA by prohibiting the indefinite 
detention of U.S. persons. Even though the Due Process Guarantee Act 
received 67 votes of support in the last Congress, it continues to be 
blocked by these privileged few who cobbled together this bill.
  Now at the eleventh hour we are told we have to vote for everything 
in this legislative medley or vote for none of it. After deliberately 
allowing time to expire, up to the final moments before the holiday, 
the Senate majority leader has told the American people that the only 
way to support our soldiers is to support a distorted legislative 
process and controversial items that have never been debated in public. 
Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, and others who serve us in 
the pursuit of our national security interests deserve better.
  Many of my colleagues have said that this is a ``must-pass'' bill. I 
would put it slightly differently. I would say we must pass legislation 
without political

[[Page 17543]]

gimmicks or procedural games that enable men and women serving our 
Defense Department to fulfill their missions. We absolutely must pay 
our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, and authorize our national 
defense budget as a matter of constitutional responsibility, national 
security, and moral duty. We must do these things. But not like this. I 
fear that we in the Senate have perhaps become far too comfortable with 
the idea that the most important issues such as paying our troops, 
funding our Defense Department, sending our sons and daughters halfway 
around the world into harm's way--that it is somehow OK to bend the 
rules to a breaking point and we allow our colleagues to hijack funding 
for our men and women in uniform to pass their unrelated political 
priorities.
  There is no doubt that it is easier this way--easier, that is, for 
Senators. It is easier to outsource our representative duties to a 
select few and to avoid debate on the tough topics that come up along 
the way. But that doesn't make it right. As our courageous 
servicemembers and their families know, easier is rarely best.
  The rules governing how a bill becomes a law are not optional. They 
are not arbitrary, either. They exist for a good reason: to ensure that 
the will of the American people is heard and followed. If we fail to 
adhere to the rules, then we fail in the duties we were elected to 
carry out, and we fail to be a truly representative democracy. But 
these rules are not self-enforcing. Writing them down doesn't make them 
so. Unless we hold them true in our hearts and in our minds and in our 
actions, they will be nothing more than words on paper, mere parchment 
barriers, as James Madison put it.
  If we as an institution can accept a legislative process driven by 
backroom deals rather than fair and inclusive debate when we are 
dealing with the most important issues, then when are we ever going to 
do things the right way?
  We can do better. The American people and especially those serving in 
uniform deserve better; and as we saw in the recent elections, the 
American people demand we do better. I think we can and we must.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The majority whip.


      SSCI Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, many people think that Congress is 
irrelevant, unimportant, and wastes time with the floor speeches that 
go nowhere. Yesterday on the floor of the Senate something historic 
occurred. Standing right back here, the senior Senator from California, 
Senator Dianne Feinstein, delivered to Congress and to the Nation a 
report on the use of torture by the United States of America. Seated on 
this side was Senator Jay Rockefeller who, as the predecessor and 
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, initiated this 
investigation into the use of torture. Her speech, which lasted about 
an hour, was followed by Senator John McCain, who stood up and 
applauded her for releasing this report.
  It is worthy of note that what happened on the floor of this Senate 
yesterday was an assertion of constitutional principles that goes back 
to the founding of this country. It was an assertion of the three 
branches of government and their authority, and the authority of 
Congress to oversee the executive branch of government, and it got down 
to basics. Let's remember how we reached the point where this report 
was put together and delivered to the American people.
  I will say at the outset that before I came to this job, I used to 
practice law and occasionally I would go into a courtroom. I really 
waited for that moment when I could turn to the jury and say: I want to 
let you know that my opponent in this case destroyed evidence, and I 
want to let you know why my opponent destroyed evidence--because what 
was in that evidence was so terrible they would rather leave it to your 
speculation of how bad it was than actually to let you read it. That is 
what started this debate which led to the report. What happened was the 
Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogation 
of prisoners. After it was discovered that they destroyed them, the 
Senate Intelligence Committee asked: Why did you destroy those 
videotapes? They said: Because Congress never asked for them. The 
Intelligence Committee said: We didn't know they existed.
  At that point the Central Intelligence Agency said to the Senate 
Intelligence Committee: We did nothing wrong, and we invite you, 
through your staff and members of the committee, to review the cables 
and emails within the Central Intelligence Agency which prove our case. 
It proves we did nothing wrong.
  I think the CIA was surprised and shocked when the Senate 
Intelligence Committee took up their invitation. It meant, I 
understand, 5 years of work. They reviewed some 6 million pages of 
information. Two staffers from the Senate Intelligence Committee sat in 
what they call the cave day after day after day, poring through emails 
and cables to try to reconstruct what happened after 9/11 when the 
Central Intelligence Agency was interrogating prisoners. It wasn't an 
easy task. It was made even more difficult when we came to learn that 
the Central Intelligence Agency hacked into the computers of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee. It was a tough confrontation between two 
branches of government, and it is one that resulted, I think, in the 
right ending when Senator Feinstein, and the Senate Intelligence 
Committee, following the lead of Senator Rockefeller, stepped forward 
and produced this report.
  I will reflect for a minute on how we reached this point, but first I 
will tell you that this report concluded that the CIA repeatedly misled 
senior officials in the Bush and Obama White Houses about detention and 
interrogation programs. The report said the CIA falsely told the 
Justice Department that techniques such as waterboarding helped to 
obtain lifesaving information that kept our country safe.
  The report said the CIA detained more individuals and subjected more 
individuals to abusive interrogation techniques than it ever disclosed 
to Congress or the President. The CIA did not disclose the use of 
brutal interrogation techniques that went way beyond what even the 
torture memo of the previous administration had authorized.
  It is worth noting what brought us to this point, and of course, it 
was the tragic, horrible events of September 11. After that occurrence, 
the Bush administration unilaterally decided to set aside treaties and 
laws that have served us in the past. President Bush's then-White House 
counsel, Alberto Gonzales, recommended to President Bush that the 
President ignore the requirements of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva 
Conventions were treaties that grew out of World War II and established 
rules of warfare to protect soldiers and civilians. These treaties were 
ratified by the United States of America. They are and were the law of 
the land.
  Colin Powell, who was Secretary of State under President Bush, 
objected to Alberto Gonzales's recommendation. He argued that we could 
comply with the Geneva Conventions, fight terrorism, and still keep 
America safe.
  Here is what Secretary Powell said at the time about setting aside 
the Geneva Conventions. This ``will reverse over a century of U.S. 
policy and practice . . . undermine the protections of the law of war 
for our own troops. . . . It will undermine public support among 
critical allies, making military cooperation more difficult to 
maintain.''
  Today, Secretary Powell's words seem prophetic. Unfortunately, 
President Bush rejected Secretary Powell's advice and instead followed 
Alberto Gonzales's recommendations to set aside the Geneva Conventions.
  Then in August 2002, the Department of Justice issued the infamous 
torture memo. The memo said abuse only rises to the level of torture if 
it causes pain equivalent to organ failure or death. The memo also 
concluded the President has the authority to order the use of torture 
even though that torture would be a crime under U.S. law.

[[Page 17544]]

  The Justice Department of the United States also signed off on the 
use of torture techniques such as waterboarding. This was in August of 
2002. Thanks to the Intelligence Committee report, we now know that the 
Justice Department's legal advice was based on false information given 
to them by the CIA.
  I have a long history with this issue. It was almost 10 years ago 
that I stood at this very desk and read into the Record a graphic 
description of an FBI agent's record of abuse of interrogation that she 
witnessed at Guantanamo Bay. At the time I was criticized by members of 
the Bush-Cheney administration, but we now know that the description by 
this FBI agent was accurate, and what she described was authorized by 
the Bush administration based on false information provided by the CIA.
  It was 10 years ago when I first authored legislation to ban cruel, 
inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees. In June of 2004 America 
was shocked by the revelations about what had occurred at Abu Ghraib 
prison. The Bush administration told us these were rogue actions of a 
few bad players. I introduced my torture legislation in 2004. I wanted 
to make it clear that America condemned the abuses at Abu Ghraib and 
stood by our commitment to the humane treatment of prisoners. But what 
we didn't know was that the administration had approved the use of 
abusive interrogation techniques in CIA facilities and at Guantanamo 
Bay. A Defense Department investigation later concluded that these 
techniques migrated to Abu Ghraib.
  I offered my legislation as an amendment to the defense authorization 
bill. I expected it to be noncontroversial. It was adopted unanimously 
here in the Senate; however, the Bush administration had it removed in 
conference.
  In the fall of 2004, I tried again. I offered the same amendment to 
the 9/11 commission intelligence reform legislation. Again, my 
amendment was adopted unanimously by the Senate, and again in 
conference negotiations the Bush administration removed it. I didn't 
understand their opposition to my amendment because the United States 
ratified the torture convention, a treaty that prohibits cruel, 
inhuman, and degrading treatment, the same thing my amendment said.
  A few months later, I had an opportunity to get to the bottom of 
this. Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's White House counsel, was 
nominated to be Attorney General. During his confirmation hearings in 
January 2005, Mr. Gonzales told me the administration believed they had 
legal authority to subject detainees to cruel, inhuman, and degrading 
treatment. That was the first time that a Bush administration official 
had acknowledged this legal loophole. The Washington Post called that 
testimony ``a gross distortion of the law'' and cited it as a key 
reason for opposing the Gonzales nomination to be Attorney General.
  After this revelation, Senator McCain asked me if he could take the 
lead on legislation that I had written to ban cruel, inhuman, and 
degrading treatment. I agreed. There was no better person than John 
McCain, who in service to the United States of America was a prisoner 
of war in Vietnam for more than 5 years. He had been subjected to 
torture because of his service on behalf of our Nation. It became known 
as the McCain torture amendment. Despite a veto threat from President 
Bush, the Senate passed the McCain torture amendment in December of 
2005 by an overwhelming bipartisan 90-to-9 vote. When the President 
signed the amendment into law, he issued a signing statement reserving 
the right to ignore it if he chose.
  In June 2006, in the Hamdan decision, the Supreme Court held that the 
administration was required to follow the Geneva Conventions in its 
treatment of detainees. The Court took the same position as Secretary 
Colin Powell had argued years before when President Bush had first 
decided to disregard the Geneva Conventions.
  In September 2006 President Bush publicly acknowledged the CIA 
detention and interrogation program for the very first time.
  In July 2007 President Bush signed an Executive order stating the 
CIA's detention and interrogation program ``fully complies with the 
obligations of the United States'' under the Geneva Conventions and 
authorizing the use of certain interrogation techniques. Again, the 
administration twisted the law to justify the use of abusive tactics 
based on false information provided by the CIA.
  In October 2007 the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the 
nomination of Michael Mukasey to be Attorney General. The hearings were 
going smoothly until I asked Mr. Mukasey to condemn waterboarding as 
torture. He refused. That became the focal point of the debate on his 
confirmation.
  On December 6, 2007, the New York Times reported that in November 
2005 the CIA had destroyed videotapes showing the CIA's use of abusive 
interrogation techniques. The next day I sent a letter to Attorney 
General Mukasey asking the Justice Department to open a criminal 
investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation video evidence. 
I was the only Member of Congress to call for that investigation. In 
January the Attorney General opened the investigation. The CIA's 
destruction of these videotapes is what led to this Intelligence 
Committee report.
  Then-CIA Director Hayden suggested that the Intelligence Committee 
staff review the operational cables and emails. The Intelligence 
Committee study was authorized by an overwhelming 14-to-1 bipartisan 
vote after the SSCI, the Select Committee on Intelligence, found that 
the cables detailed detention conditions and interrogations far worse 
than what the CIA had previously described to the committee.
  The investigation led to the production of a report that is more than 
6,700 pages long, including nearly 38,000 footnotes. It is based on a 
review of more than 6 million pages of CIA records.
  In December 2012 the Intelligence Committee approved this report with 
a 9-to-6 bipartisan vote. Two months later, in February 2013, I 
received a briefing on this report before it was redacted. I was so 
disturbed by what I heard that I personally spoke with the President, 
then-Secretary of Defense Panetta, and John Brennan, to urge each of 
them to do everything possible to be briefed on its findings and 
support its declassification.
  In March 2014 I sent a letter to CIA Director Brennan raising serious 
concerns about the CIA's hacking of Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence computers and again urging declassification of the report.
  In April 2014 the Intelligence Committee approved the 
declassification and the public release by an 11-to-3 bipartisan vote.
  It is critically important that this has been declassified so the 
American people can understand what has been done in their name. It was 
inconsistent with American values. It didn't make us safer, and it must 
never be repeated again.
  Yesterday Senator McCain came to the floor to support Senator 
Feinstein's disclosure. During the course of his statement on the 
floor, he said: Our enemies are acting without conscience. America 
cannot act without conscience. We are called to a higher standard than 
some because we believe in basic human values and in basic principles, 
and it may mean that some of the tactics used by our worst enemies are 
out of bounds for us, as they should be.
  What happened with this disclosure is an important reaffirmation of 
our separation of powers and our constitutional responsibility.
  I wish to congratulate Senator Feinstein, Senator Rockefeller, and 
every member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, but 
particularly those who voted to go forward time and time again. They 
were under immense pressure not to do so.
  The fact they have held the CIA accountable to the American people, 
to Congress, and to the President is part of our constitutional 
responsibility. It reminds people that in a democracy the people govern 
and the people have a right to know what this government is doing in 
their name.

[[Page 17545]]

  There has been a lot of debate since the release of this report, and 
I assume it will continue. But if it ends with the report in the press, 
we have not done enough. We have to reform our processes, and let me 
start with Congress.
  I served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for 4 years. It was a 
daunting assignment. Virtually every hearing is behind closed doors and 
classified. No one knows here even at the Select Committee on 
Intelligence unless you tell them afterwards. Testimony before us isn't 
available to the public. Most of the time, the professionals from the 
intelligence agencies come before us and speak in the acronyms of their 
agencies to the point you can't even follow what they are saying. It 
took me 2 years of sitting there puzzling over what they were saying to 
finally get an insight into what the committee and its responsibility 
were all about. That is not right.
  We need to make sure that congressional oversight of our intelligence 
function is up to the job and up to the Constitution. That means more 
resources put in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. When I 
served, members of the committee shared a staffer. We each shared a 
staffer. We didn't even have one staff person working for each of us on 
these subjects. The amount of money that is being spent, tens of 
millions of dollars in covert activities and the like, needs to be 
carefully monitored. As the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee 
on Defense, I have that responsibility to look at the overall budget on 
intelligence. There is not enough oversight. We need to make certain 
that our branch of government is up to that challenge so we can 
guarantee to the American people that we are doing our job, so that we 
can be held accountable as we hold the intelligence agencies 
accountable as well.
  I think what happened yesterday is going to be part of the history of 
the Senate, an important, positive part. I hope it is just the 
beginning where both political parties come together and accept their 
constitutional responsibility.


                     Tributes to Departing Senators

  Mr. DURBIN. I have some tributes here for my colleagues who are 
retiring, leaving the Senate. It is a lengthy list of tributes.


                               Tom Harkin

  To Senator Tom Harkin, neighboring State of Iowa, whom I worked with 
over many years on so many important topics, I want to salute him for 
his service. The highlights of his service include the Americans With 
Disabilities Act and, of course, the Affordable Care Act. His work on 
education and medical research is legendary. There was a time when Tom 
Harkin and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania at that time, set 
out to double the medical research budget at the National Institutes of 
Health and they did it. Lives have been saved, people have been spared 
suffering because they had the political determination and courage to 
achieve it. I am going to miss Tom Harkin.
  I have served in Congress for a number of years and I have heard an 
awful lot of speeches. One of the most powerful speeches I ever 
witnessed in this Senate was delivered by Tom Harkin in 1990. He gave 
his speech without uttering a single word. He delivered it entirely in 
American Sign Language--a language he knows from years of communicating 
with his brother Frank, who was deaf. In that historic speech in sign 
language--a first for this body--Tom Harkin was urging the United 
States Senate to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act.
  The ADA is one of the great civil rights laws of the 20th century. It 
is often called ``the Emancipation Proclamation for Americans with 
disabilities.'' It is a landmark achievement in America's ongoing 
efforts to create a more perfect union. No one worked harder for its 
passage than the senior Senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin. He is often and 
rightly referred to as ``the father of the ADA.''
  That speech in 1990 was unique in its use of sign language. In 
another way, however, it was like nearly every speech Tom Harkin has 
given because he was speaking for people whose voices too often are not 
heard in Congress.
  In his 40 years in Congress, Tom Harkin has been a passionate, often 
fiery and relentless voice for good people who have often been dealt a 
bad hand by life. He has been a champion for men like his father, a 
coal miner with black lung disease, and others who desperately need 
health care. He has been a champion for people with disabilities--in 
America and around the world. He has been a champion of children in 
foreign lands who are trapped in the worst forms of forced labor.
  Tom Harkin has been a champion of working men and women in this 
country--and of their constitutionally protected right to organize and 
bargain for decent pay and safe working conditions.
  Tom Harkin has been a leader in safeguarding Medicare and Social 
Security, and moving people from welfare to work.
  The senior Senator from Iowa and I were both very lucky. We are 
first-generation Americans. Senator Harkin's mother came to this 
country from Slovenia; my mother came from Lithuania.
  He knows from his own family's experience the love and gratitude that 
so many immigrants feel for the freedoms and opportunities America has 
given them and their children. So he has fought for immigration laws 
that protect America's security at the same time they honor our 
heritage as a nation of immigrants.
  I want him to know that we will continue our efforts to pass such 
laws until we succeed--just as we will continue to push for adoption by 
this Senate of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with 
Disabilities until we pass that important treaty.
  As are so many others, Tom Harkin was inspired to public service by 
the example of President John Kennedy. After working his way through 
college, Senator Harkin spent 5 years as a Navy pilot in the 1960s. He 
had applied to become a pilot for a commercial airline when he received 
a more compelling offer. In 1969, an Iowa Congressman invited Tom 
Harkin to join his Washington, DC staff. He said yes. He also used his 
GI Bill benefits to earn a law degree from Catholic University.
  Tom went back home to Iowa--and then he returned to Washington in 
1974, not as a staffer, but as a Member of the House of 
Representatives. A decade later, Iowa voters elected him to the U.S. 
Senate. And in 1990 he became the first Democrat ever to be re-elected 
to the U.S. Senate by Iowa voters. They must have thought that was a 
good idea because they re-elected him three more times after that.
  Today, 40 years after his first election, Tom Harkin is grayer and 
wiser. But he has never forgotten where he came from. He is a proud 
Midwestern progressive who has never forgotten the hope and dignity 
that smart, compassionate government gave his family when they needed 
it. And he has never tired of working to make sure that other families 
have the same chances his family had.
  I wish Tom and Ruth, their daughters and grandchildren all the best.
  Tom Harkin leaves a legacy of achievement and compassion. I will miss 
his presence in this Senate but he and Ruth will always be a part of 
our Senate family.


                               Kay Hagan

  Kay Hagan, my colleague from North Carolina, has done an amazing job. 
In her one term in the Senate, she really made a name for herself when 
it came to public service. She stepped up time and again and took tough 
votes. I know it because as whip I asked her to take on some important 
issues that would made this a better and stronger nation.
  When Kay entered the Senate in those perilous days, America was in 
crisis. The economy was in freefall. Millions had lost their homes to 
foreclosure. America was fighting two wars--and though our military is 
the finest in the world, many of its members were exhausted from 
multiple deployments.
  Six years later, we have made progress in all of these areas. 
Historians will record that Senator Kay Hagan helped to make America 
stronger and better.

[[Page 17546]]

  Senator Kay Hagan comes from a family that knows a great deal about 
serving and sacrificing for America. Her maternal uncle, Lawton Chiles, 
was a Korean War veteran who represented Florida in the U.S. House and 
Senate and served as Florida's governor. Her father-in-law was a two-
star Marine general, her brother and father both served in the Navy, 
and her husband is a Vietnam veteran who used the GI Bill to help pay 
for law school.
  Senator Hagan first learned the ups-and-downs of Congress--
literally--by operating the Senators-only elevator while interning for 
her uncle.
  Senator Hagan is a former ballet dancer--a discipline that demands 
great discipline and hard work. As a Senator, she has used those same 
qualities to benefit her State and our Nation.
  She served 10 years in the North Carolina State Senate and in those 
10 years, she earned a reputation as a commonsense hard-worker 
interested in results, not partisan fighting. As co-chair of the State 
Budget Committee, she increased the State's ``Rainy Day'' fund and 
balanced five straight budgets. You heard that right--five straight 
budgets. She also helped make record investments in education, raised 
teacher pay, and increased the minimum wage.
  Here in the U.S. Senate, she has continued to be a leader on 
education issues, most notably helping to lead a group of Senators to 
start fixing No Child Left Behind. With her family's military 
background, it is no surprise that Senator Hagan has fought hard for 
military families and veterans. She introduced another bill that is 
close to my heart and that I will continue to work for. It would 
prohibit for-profit colleges from using the phrase ``GI Bill'' in 
aggressive marketing efforts aimed at separating veterans and 
servicemembers from their hard-earned education benefits. And she led 
the successful effort to provide health care to those affected by water 
contamination at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the largest Marine 
Corps base on the East Coast.
  Kay Hagan will leave this Senate with a proud record of dauntless 
accomplishment and I am proud to have had the privilege to call her 
colleague. I thank her for her friendship and service, and I wish her 
the best in all her future endeavors.


                              Mark Begich

  I can't imagine how the Senator from Alaska handles that commute back 
and forth, but he did it. I said the other day when we spoke about his 
service that many people don't realize his father was a Congressman 
before him and he died in a plane crash with Hale Boggs when they were 
flying back to Alaska to appear at an event. That plane was lost and 
never recovered. When Mark Begich came from Alaska to serve the United 
States, he completed the journey his father never could complete. His 6 
years of service to Alaska have been extraordinary.
  Before he got into politics, though, Mark was a whiz kid 
entrepreneur. When he was just 16 years old, he got a business license 
and he and his brother opened two businesses: a nightclub for teens and 
a vending-machine operation. The business world's loss was our gain.
  Senator Begich started his political career working as an aide to 
then-Anchorage Mayor Tony Knowles. At 26, he was elected to the 
Anchorage Assembly, or city council. And in 2003, he became the first 
native-born Alaskan to serve as mayor of Anchorage.
  In 2008, he dared to take on an Alaska legend: Senator Ted Stevens. 
When the votes were counted, Mark had become the first Democrat since 
Mike Gravel in 1981 to represent Alaska in the U.S. Senate.
  As a Senator, Mark Begich has been a voice for working families in 
Alaska and across America. He has diligently and doggedly pursued 
common-sense, bipartisan solutions to big challenges. In all things, 
Mark's heart is always with Alaska. He has helped to protect Alaska 
fisheries, promoted renewable energy development in the State, and made 
sure Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson remains strong and active.
  Here is something about Mark my colleagues may not know. In 2011 he 
was part of a four-man team in the Hotline's live annual trivia 
contest. His teammates were three House members: Dennis Ross, Tom 
Davis, and Martin Frost. They were up against a formidable team that 
included Chuck Todd and Amy Walters. No one gave Mark's team a prayer 
of winning. But once again, Mark Begich scored an upset victory. He is 
to DC political trivia what Ken Jennings is to Jeopardy: A memorable 
champion.
  But the actions for which he will be remembered are very far from 
trivial. When Mark Begich and others in the Class of 2008 arrived in 
the Senate America's economy was in freefall. Millions of families had 
lost their homes to foreclosure--the worst foreclosure crisis in 
America since the Great Depression. America was fighting two wars. Our 
military is the finest in the world. Many of its members were exhausted 
from multiple deployments. On top of that, an outdated policy of 
``don't ask, don't tell'' forced some servicemembers to lie about who 
they were in order to serve the Nation they love. Time after time, 
Senator Mark Begich took brave and principled votes that have made 
America better and stronger--militarily, economically, and socially.
  This son of one of Alaska's great families has well earned--and will 
always hold--a place in our Senate family.


                              Tim Johnson

  Tim Johnson and I came to the Senate together, Tim from South Dakota. 
He eventually became chairman of the banking committee after he faced 
one of the toughest physical challenges any Senator has ever faced, a 
debilitating brain injury that left him physically limited but never 
limited in spirit and intelligence. Thank God, with Barb at his side, 
he continued in public service to serve the State of South Dakota.
  I am going to miss my great friend Tim Johnson.
  He and I go back quite a ways. We served together in the House--and 
we came to the Senate together in 1996. That year, Tim Johnson was the 
only Senate candidate to defeat an incumbent U.S. Senator in a general 
election.
  He won that first Senate election the old-fashioned way--with 
dedication, hard work, and a lot of shoe leather. I think he knocked on 
every door in South Dakota--twice. Dedication, humility, and 
unbelievable hard work--those are the values Tim learned as a fourth-
generation South Dakotan. And they are the values that have exemplified 
his entire career.
  In 1986, Tim Johnson was a semi-obscure state legislator from 
Vermillion, SD when he decided to run for his State's only seat in the 
U.S. House of Representatives. Tim might have been the only person who 
thought he had a chance of winning that race, but he surprised people. 
He did win--and he has never lost an election since. Eight consecutive 
statewide victories and zero losses. That is quite an accomplishment.
  Here is another interesting fact about Tim Johnson: During his first 
term in the House, he was responsible for passing more legislation than 
any of the other 50 first-term Members.
  In his 36 years of public service, Tim Johnson has been a strong 
voice for family farmers and ranchers in South Dakota and across 
America. He is a longtime advocate of Federal support for renewable 
energy--especially ethanol and wind energy. He helped lead the effort 
to pass the Country of Origin Label Act--the COOL Act, for short--to 
let consumers know if the meat they feed their families was raised in 
America.
  Senator Johnson has been a leading advocate for Native Americans. He 
has fought especially hard for the members of the Lakota and Dakota 
tribes--descendants of the legendary Indian leaders Sitting Bull and 
Crazy Horse--who call South Dakota home.
  Tim Johnson has fought for a livable minimum wage. He helped 
strengthen America's health safety net by voting to create the 
Children's Health Insurance Program and to expand Medicaid to those who 
need it. He voted for the Affordable Care Act, which passed this Senate 
without a vote to spare. That was a difficult vote for many but I 
believe that history will show it was the

[[Page 17547]]

right vote for America, and Tim Johnson was on the right side of 
history.
  As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee these last 3 years, Tim 
Johnson has played an historic role in helping to implement the Dodd-
Frank Wall Street reform law and prevent a repeat of the kinds of 
abuses that nearly crashed our economy in 2008. He has moved forward 
despite intense opposition to reform from both inside and outside of 
Congress.
  One of the most important of the Dodd-Frank reforms was the creation 
of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Chairman Johnson pressed 
successfully for Senate confirmation of Richard Cordray to head that 
new bureau so it would have a strong leader at the helm.
  While he is justifiably proud of the legislative victories that bear 
his imprint, Tim Johnson may be even more proud of the constituent 
services he and his staff have given the people of South Dakota. 
Helping a veteran secure a proper disability rating or helping a senior 
citizen receive the Social Security and Medicare coverage he or she is 
due may not make headlines, but it makes a huge difference in the lives 
of individuals. Tim Johnson and his staff understand that.
  I will never forget seeing Tim Johnson walk onto the Senate floor on 
September 5, 2007--less than a year after a brain hemorrhage nearly 
killed him. The courage and strength it took to come back from such a 
trauma is hard to imagine. Senator Mark Kirk, my partner from Illinois, 
told me that during his own recovery from a stroke, if he ever felt 
like giving up, he would ask himself: ``What would Tim Johnson do?''
  Dedication to public service is a family trait in the Johnson Family. 
Barb's work on behalf of children and families has made life better for 
so many. Kelsey is an advocate for breast cancer awareness and 
research. Brendan is the U.S. Attorney for the District of South 
Dakota. And Brooks is in the National Guard following Army service in 
Bosnia, Kosovo, South Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
  Some time ago, the chief and people of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe 
honored Senator Johnson by bestowing on him a Lakota name. His Lakota 
name is Wacante Ognake. In English, it means ``holds the people in his 
heart.''
  That is the spirit that has guided Tim Johnson throughout his public 
life.
  I wish Tim and Barb the very best in all their future endeavors.


             Saxby Chambliss, Tom Coburn, and Mike Johanns

  I want to say a word about three others on the other side of the 
aisle who are retiring: Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Tom Coburn of 
Oklahoma, and Mike Johanns of Nebraska. I got to know them when I 
gathered with one of these gangs, as they call them around here, to 
talk about deficit reduction. We spent more time together trying to 
explore the Federal budget in ways to reduce our deficit in a 
thoughtful manner so that we really got to know one another and respect 
one another.
  There is a world of difference in our political values and 
philosophies, but each of them in their own way made a positive 
contribution toward making this a stronger nation.
  I remember well the day Senator Chambliss announced that he would not 
let Grover Norquist and Grover's ``no tax increases ever'' demand 
dictate the terms of a deficit-reduction plan. That needed to be said, 
and it took political courage. Although Senator Chambliss will not be 
with us when the Senate convenes in January, I hope his example will be 
with us. And I wish him the best in his future endeavors.
  Senator Tom Coburn and I come from different parts of the country and 
different ends of the political spectrum, but we found there is a lot 
we agree on. I have always believed, as Senators Paul Douglas and Paul 
Simon said, that being a liberal doesn't mean you have to be a 
``wastrel.'' Senator Coburn knows that being a conservative and 
protecting America's economy demands more than blind budget-cutting. 
His nickname is ``Doctor No,'' but when it comes to wishing him well as 
he steps down from the Senate, my colleagues join me in a resounding 
``yes.''
  Finally, here is a suggestion for when you have watched all of the 
``shouting head'' political TV talk shows you can take: Listen to 
Senator Mike Johanns. Mike's quiet, reasonable approach was a real 
asset not only to the Gang of Eight negotiations, but to the entire 
Senate. We will miss his calm demeanor and his good-faith efforts to 
find smart, fair solutions to tough challenges.
  None of them is running for re-election so I can't hurt them 
politically by saying that I regard each of these Senators as friends. 
They showed political courage when partisanship would have been easier.
  I wish them the best in all their future endeavors.


                               Carl Levin

  Last night it was my honor to salute Carl Levin of Michigan for his 
36 years of service in the U.S. Senate. He has done so many things so 
well. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he has produced this 
contentious and challenging bill year after year, both as ranking 
member and as chairman. As chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations, he really raised that subcommittee to a new level. He 
tackled some of the most complex issues of our day, particularly when 
it came to corporate abuse. He spent the time to get the facts right. 
When he had a hearing, he made an extraordinary contribution to the 
public dialogue about reforming our law and making this a better 
nation.
  When I was first elected to the Senate, people back home said to me: 
Well, now that you have been in the Senate a year or two, which 
Senators do you respect the most?
  I said then, and I will repeat it today, if I had a tough, important 
decision, one I was wrestling over, an issue or a vote, and I could 
only reach out to a couple of Senators at the time, one would be Paul 
Sarbanes of Maryland, now retired, and the other is Carl Levin. That is 
still a fact.
  Long before Carl Levin was elected to the U.S. Senate it was clear 
that he had a gift for politics. Picture this--true story: At Central 
High School in Detroit, Carl Levin was elected class president. He won 
that race after, as he tells it, ``running around with a piece of 
matzoh telling other students: `This is what happens to bread without 
Levin.''' How's that for a slogan?
  As much as I hate to think about it, soon we will have a United 
States Senate without Levin--for the first time in 36 years. Our only 
consolation is that Carl Levin leaves a legacy of good and important 
laws. He also leaves a powerful example of what can be achieved when we 
choose integrity over ideology . . . and our common good over 
confrontation.
  A Jewish publication in Detroit wrote a while back that Carl Levin 
and his brother, Congressman Sandy Levin, both deserve ``honorable 
menschen awards''--with the accent on ``mensch''--for their historic 
service to our Nation. I agree wholeheartedly. Senator Levin's keen 
intellect, honesty and fair-mindedness--his decency and unfailing 
civility--have earned him the respect of Senators on both sides of the 
aisle.
  Many years ago I was an intern for a great Senator, Senator Paul 
Douglas of Illinois. Every year now, the University of Illinois 
presents a ``Paul Douglas Ethics in Government Award'' to an elected 
leader who shares Senator Douglas' deep commitment to social and 
economic justice, and efficient government. The recipient of the Paul 
Douglas Ethics in Government Award in 2006 was Senator Carl Levin. Paul 
Douglas would have approved that choice heartily.
  As was Paul Douglas, Carl Levin has been a foot soldier for justice. 
Paul Douglas was a leader in the effort to pass a strong Federal Civil 
Rights Act. In 1964, the year that law finally passed, Carl Levin was 
appointed the first general counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights 
Commission.
  Paul Douglas believed in government and he hated government waste. He 
used to say: ``You don't have to be a wastrel to be a liberal.'' Carl 
Levin reminds us that: ``There are some things that only government can 
do, so we need government. But we don't need an

[[Page 17548]]

inefficient, wasteful, arrogant government.''
  Carl Levin was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978. Before that, he 
was active for 15 years in Detroit and Michigan State politics. He 
taught law before he entered politics. He also held some other 
interesting jobs--including driving a cab in Detroit and working on a 
DeSoto assembly line.
  He showed up in Washington in 1979 driving a 1974 Dodge Dart with a 
hole in the floorboard. He was still driving that same car to the 
Capitol 10 years later. That tells us something about Carl Levin's 
devotion to the U.S. auto industry, its workers and unions.
  When General Motors and Chrysler faced potential collapse in 2008, he 
pressed Congress and a new president to support the companies with 
billions of dollars in loans.
  Those loans have since been repaid and Chrysler and GM are not only 
solvent, they are making a profit. The U.S. auto industry is in the 
midst of its fastest expansion since 1950.
  Carl Levin is a champion as well of America's military, military 
families and veterans. He has served on the Armed Services Committee 
since coming to the Senate 36 years ago. He is one of Congress's most 
respected voices on national security and military issues.
  Some years back he used his power on the Armed Services Committee to 
question the procurement practices of the military. He asked: Why was 
the Pentagon spending thousands of dollars apiece for things like 
toilet seats and hammers? He said: We need more money for soldiers and 
less wasteful spending for contractors. With the world growing more 
volatile and complex and increasing pressure to reduce defense budgets, 
those are questions we must all be willing to ask.
  As a ranking member and then chair of the Senate's Permanent 
Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Levin's piercing intellect and 
his patient mastery of complex issues helped, over and over, to expose 
and correct serious wrongdoing.
  As PSI chairman in 2002, he led a probe of the activities of Enron 
Corp; the investigation resulted in legislation to improve the accuracy 
and reliability of corporate disclosures.
  From white collar crime, to money laundering, abusive tax shelters, 
and gasoline and crude oil price-gouging, he has pursued the subjects 
of every investigation with nonpartisan vigor, seeking results, not 
spotlights.
  The list of laws bearing his imprint is long and historic: The 
Competition in Contracting Act of 1984; Social Security Disability 
Benefits Reform, 1984; The Anti-Kickback Enforcement Act, 1986; The 
Whistleblower Protection Act, 1989; The Ethics Reform Act in 1989; The 
Lobbying Disclosure Act in 1995--the first major lobbying reform in 50 
years.
  The list goes on and on. Senator Levin voted: To repeal ``Don't Ask, 
Don't Tell''; to protect voting rights; and to limit the influence of 
private-interest money in elections.
  He has voted to support American manufacturing--and stop giving tax 
breaks to corporations to ship American jobs overseas.
  He supported my efforts to change bankruptcy laws to allow deserving 
homeowners to save their homes in foreclosures.
  He voted to regulate tobacco as a drug--another issue that is 
personal for me.
  I will always remember Senator Levin's vote on the Iraq war 
resolution. For years before 9/11, he warned anyone who would listen 
that America was threatened by terrorism. When the horrific attacks 
came, he supported pursuing the attackers in Afghanistan.
  A year later, he and I were among just 23 Senators to vote against 
the Iraq War. He voted no, even though he was then chair of the Armed 
Services Committee. That took extraordinary moral and political 
courage, and history has shown he was right.
  Carl Levin is the longest-serving Senator in Michigan history, 
surpassing another Senate legend, Arthur Vandenberg. As he proved long 
ago when he was elected president of his high school council, he is a 
natural-born politician. But like Senator Vandenberg, he is more than a 
politician; he is a statesman.
  I will miss his presence in this Senate and I wish him, and his wife 
Barbara, all the best in the future.


                               Mark Udall

  Mark Udall, my friend from Colorado and the Presiding Officer's 
colleague. As I said last night, I served with his dad. His dad may 
have been the funniest public servant I ever served with. What a wit, 
what a sense of humor. He once said: If you have politics in your 
bloodstream, only embalming fluid will replace it.
  Thank goodness the Udalls have politics in their bloodstream. Mo 
Udall served in the House of Representatives, candidate for President; 
Mark Udall's uncle, Stewart Udall, who was Secretary of Interior under 
President John Kennedy; Tom Udall, Mark's cousin, the son of Stewart 
Udall, serves as Senator of New Mexico; Mark Udall himself, what a 
great person.
  I can remember so many things about his public service, but I 
remembered, especially last night, when he lost his brother and came 
before our caucus lunch and talked about the love he had for that man 
and what that loss meant to him. It touched the heart of everyone in 
the room. It gave us an insight into the heart of Mark Udall as a 
person.
  He was committed to a number of causes. His wife Maggie and he have 
given so much time to the environment and preserving our national 
heritage, but he also showed great courage when it came to his service 
on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Even as a new member of that 
committee, he stepped up for principles and values, and I am glad he 
did, preserving our rights and liberties as American citizens and fully 
supporting the disclosure that Senator Feinstein made yesterday with 
her report.
  Mark has fought to protect Americans' privacy rights with thoughtful 
reforms of the NSA and the PATRIOT Act.
  In keeping with his family's tradition, he has made protecting our 
environment and our precious natural resources a top priority. He has 
been a leader in addressing climate change as a growing threat to our 
national security. He organized support in the Senate for legislation 
that would require 15 percent of electricity to be generated from 
renewable sources by 2021.
  And in the 2013 Defense Authorization Act, Mark Udall led the effort 
to allow the Pentagon to continue to develop and use renewable energy
  During his one term, Mark Udall made more dauntless decisions and 
achieved more good for America than many Senators who have served far 
longer.
  He supported a recovery act that helped turn the tide against the 
worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. He voted for the 
most far-reaching financial reform since the Great Depression and he 
supported one of the biggest investments in college affordability since 
the GI Bill. Millions of Americans are back at work and millions of 
Americans know the security that comes with affordable health care, in 
part, because of his courage.
  The famed explorer Edmund Hillary once said, ``Human life is far more 
important than just getting to the top of a mountain.''
  For Mark Udall, being a U.S. Senator has been about something more 
important than acquiring power. It has been about using that power to 
preserve our precious natural treasures and make life better for 
others.
  Mo Udall would be proud of the U.S. Senator his son has become, and I 
am certainly proud to have worked with him.
  I have been in the Senate now for 18 years, and I have seen many come 
and go. But we have lost, sadly, in this departure of these Members 
some of our best.


                             Mary Landrieu

  I will close by mentioning the one whose fate was determined the 
last, and that was Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. She has been a great 
Senator for Louisiana. She worked harder and achieved more for that 
State than, obviously, the people of that State realized. There wasn't 
an issue that came before us that Mary didn't stand up

[[Page 17549]]

and say: Now let me tell you how that affects Louisiana, and usually 
make an ask which was fulfilled.
  Let me add one other grace note when it comes to her personal and 
public life. Mary and her husband have adopted two children. They are 
the light of their lives. Her dedication to the cause of adopted 
children has really made a difference not just to the United States but 
in the world. I am sure she didn't get a lot of political reward for 
it, but thank goodness she put a big part of her life and her public 
life into standing up for the rights of adopted children and adoptive 
parents, encouraging more and more, so the kids would have a loving 
home as part of their lives. It was just one of the things that Mary 
worked on, but it was one of the things I will remember. I am going to 
miss her and her service to the U.S. Senate.
  Mary bleeds Louisiana. Her father is the legendary statesmen Moon 
Landrieu, former New Orleans mayor, HUD Secretary under President Jimmy 
Carter, and Judge of Louisiana's 4th Circuit Court. Her brother, Mitch, 
is the current Mayor of New Orleans.
  Mary--the eldest of the eight siblings--learned important political 
lessons early. She was taunted in early grade school about her father's 
pro civil rights stands in the 1960s. Those experiences taught her that 
taking the right position sometimes makes you unpopular--but you do it 
anyway.
  Mary was only 23 when she entered the Louisiana House of 
Representatives in 1980. She went on to serve as a member of her 
State's senate.
  Mary is a formidable fighter for Louisiana. In her State's darkest 
hours, during Hurricane Katrina and in the aftermath of that terrible 
catastrophe, she stood strong. She was exactly the right person for 
Louisiana. More than any other single official, she deserves the credit 
for directing billions of dollars in relief and rebuilding money to her 
hometown and home State.
  Governor Bobby Jindal's Secretary of Administration had this to say 
about Mary Landrieu: ``She's relentless; once she starts, she will not 
stop. And once she's on your side, she's on your side.''
  This is what St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain remembers about 
Katrina: ``The very first federal representative we had on the ground 
after Katrina was Mary Landrieu . . . when water was still in our 
houses and neighborhoods. . . . She spoke to my deputies and offered 
assistance to them.''
  Perhaps the best description of Mary Landrieu was offered by her 
mentor, former Senator John Breaux, who calls her ``a pit bull with 
Louisiana charm.''
  In 2009, when Hurricane Katrina was just a dim, bad memory for some, 
Senator Landrieu made sure the stimulus bill included a provision that 
ended up allowing the state to rebuild Charity Hospital, the 
cornerstone of health care for many low-income New Orleans families.
  Senator Landrieu has been a champion of the energy industry--so 
crucial to the economy of her State and her Nation. She has fought to 
preserve Social Security and Medicare and other safety net programs 
that provide dignity and security for so many. She has fought to defend 
voting rights, women's right, and children's right. She has earned a 
spot in heaven with her work to promote adoption. She provided a 
crucial vote to pass the Affordable Care Act, knowing full well that it 
would cost her politically. If that doesn't earn her a spot in heaven, 
it will at least earn her a place in history as a profile in courage.
  With her political genes and determination, I know that Mary Landrieu 
will continue to be a force in Louisiana and American politics for 
years to come. And while I will miss seeing her every day in this 
Senate, I look forward to seeing her fight for what is right for many, 
many more years. It has been an honor to serve with her.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Tax Extenders and Omnibus

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, as we come to the close of the 113th 
Congress, I wish to speak for a few minutes about why I think we should 
be optimistic about the future and what we can and must do to take 
advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.
  Despite economic slowdowns throughout much of the world among 
developing and developed Nations alike, America's economy continues to 
steadily grow. Just last Friday we got great news that our economy 
created more than 300,000 jobs in the month of November. That marks 57 
straight months, or nearly 5 years, of positive job growth numbers. For 
the first time since Bill Clinton was President of this Nation, we have 
averaged more than 200,000 new jobs per month for 10 straight months.
  Particularly in the economy is an area of growth and opportunity that 
I have focused on in my time before coming into public service and in 
my 4 years here. That is American manufacturing, an industry about 
which I have spoken at length here on the Senate floor and have worked 
with my colleagues to craft and assemble a group of bipartisan bills 
that can help move American manufacturing forward.
  The news this last month was good, as it has been for months, for 
years now, about American manufacturing, which continues to grow as 
well. There were 28,000 new American manufacturing jobs last month, 
which continued this steady climb. It has now created more than 750,000 
new jobs over the last 4 years. Manufacturing jobs are great jobs. They 
typically are higher wage and higher skill and have higher benefits 
than jobs in any other sector. They are good, middle-class jobs you can 
raise a family on. They deal with one of the biggest ongoing remnants 
of the great recession, which is the lack of real wage growth in our 
economy. So I am excited to see that manufacturing jobs continue to 
grow in our economy and to talk about the things we can and should do 
to help sustain this growth in manufacturing.
  We have reason to be optimistic, but we cannot be complacent. As much 
as we built momentum over the last year since the recession, and 
especially this year, there is, of course, no natural law, no economic 
fundamental principle that says it will not turn back around. We need 
to sustain our positive direction, particularly in this sector, 
particularly as we move toward the 114th Congress.
  I am proud that Congress last year passed a 2-year budget to create 
some stability and some certainty for our country and economy. We have 
gotten out of the way and allowed our businesses and workers to do what 
they do best, to move our economy forward. In the next few days we will 
have chances to do the same when we vote on a number of bills, one 
that, most importantly, will keep our government running, not for a few 
days or weeks or months, but the overwhelming majority of this 
government will be authorized and funded through next September.
  The funding bills that are included in this omnibus continue 
investments in innovation and continue to move our country forward. 
There is a whole rash of bills that I have been interested in and 
engaged in as a member of the Appropriations Committee that are 
valuable programs, that will strengthen manufacturing--for example, the 
Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which has done amazing work on the 
ground in Delaware, helping small and medium manufacturers to be 
competitive, to train their workforce in current skills, to grow into 
the spaces of the world economy where we have real opportunity. This 
bill will help sustain the funding for the Manufacturing Extension 
Partnership nationally.
  There are several other programs related to innovation in the 
Department of Energy. For example, sustained funding for the ARPA-E, 
for an innovative model that helps fund cutting-edge, category-
redefining research and investment in energy and in clean energy 
manufacturing and in technology deployment.

[[Page 17550]]

  There are also opportunities for us to continue to put Americans to 
work through investments in infrastructure. As someone who lives on 
Amtrak 16 hours a week, I am thrilled with the outcomes for both the 
Amtrak budget and for the TIGER grant programs, a tool used by the 
Department of Transportation to help incentivize innovative 
transportation projects that break through bottlenecks and help put 
Americans back to work.
  There are so many different ways that the work of this bipartisan 
committee, the Appropriations Committee, helped move our economy 
forward that at times are not focused on here on the floor or in the 
general press coverage. It is such a large and comprehensive bill, the 
omnibus. But I wanted to take a moment and highlight a few ways in 
which the omnibus invests in innovation, in competitiveness, and in 
moving our economy forward. I am also grateful, in some ways most 
importantly, that it includes emergency funding to respond to Ebola, 
both at home and abroad, which will be critical to helping stamp out 
this deadly virus at its origin in West Africa and in protecting 
Americans here at home and others around the world.
  The appropriations bills that were shepherded through the dozen 
subcommittees give us reason to be optimistic about the future because 
the Chair, Senator Mikulski, and the Vice Chair, Senator Shelby, have 
done a laudable job of listening to each other, of working together, 
and of crafting a bipartisan bill here in the Senate, which I hope the 
Members of this body will study, consider, and move forward and adopt.
  As we move to complete the business of funding the government, we 
would be remiss if we did not also take stock of the opportunities in 
front of us we have not yet grasped. There is unfinished work to be 
done. This week we will also almost certainly pass a 1-year tax 
extenders bill, which will carry forward certain temporary tax credits 
and deductions, but for just the 1 year.
  Although the extension for many businesses and many sectors is better 
than nothing, it signifies a missed opportunity on our part. Much of 
what has made me optimistic over the last year is how much our economy 
has begun to thrive in a stable fiscal environment, in a more 
predictable regulatory environment. Yet, this 1-year extension does not 
do much to give businesses the certainty they need to predict and plan 
for the future.
  I have worked hard with Democrats and Republicans alike to expand and 
make permanent the research and development tax credit, which is 
particularly relevant to manufacturing, because manufacturing is the 
most R&D-intensive sector in the American economy. Manufacturers invest 
more in R&D than any other part of the American landscape. This 1-year 
extension misses an opportunity to either make the R&D tax credit 
permanent, or to make it more accessible.
  I was excited to have the opportunity early on here to team up with 
two Republican Senators, Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Pat Roberts of 
Kansas, to find ways to make the R&D tax credit more accessible to 
early-stage and startup companies, companies with high growth 
potential, but because of the way the R&D tax credit has been 
structured and used for decades, do not have the opportunity to access 
it.
  The Startup Innovation Credit Act, which I introduced with Senator 
Enzi, would have further expanded the access to the R&D credit for 
startups. The bipartisan Innovators Job Creation Act, which I 
introduced with Senator Roberts, would have expanded the credit to 
innovative small businesses as well. Both of those bills passed on a 
bipartisan basis out of the Finance Committee and were part of a 
package being advanced here in the Senate but will not be part of the 
ultimate 1-year extenders considered later this week.
  I wanted to highlight that as we look forward there are opportunities 
still in front of us for us to tackle the challenges and to seize the 
opportunities, to take things that are important to manufacturing and 
to move them forward. There are lots of other bills in the mix that 
will be adopted this week, either by unanimous consent or as part of 
larger packages, and a number of them relate to manufacturing. I am 
optimistic that we will adopt a national manufacturing strategy bill 
that I have worked hard on with Republican Senator Mark Kirk of 
Illinois. I am optimistic that a bipartisan manufacturing hubs bill 
that Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri 
have worked hard together to craft and to hone and to get to a place 
where it is ready to be passed--that they both will make it across the 
finish line to the President's desk.
  But just this past week, I stood on this floor with Senator Kelly 
Ayotte of New Hampshire and we spoke about a bill that is not yet ready 
for adoption, but we will take up next year, the Manufacturing Skills 
Act, which helps to focus and prioritize the investments in 
manufacturing skills training at the State and municipal level all over 
the country in partnership with the Federal Government.
  What I wanted to do today was to simply highlight a few perhaps 
underappreciated, underrecognized areas of legislative action on a 
bipartisan basis in this Chamber that helped put some lift under the 
steady forward progress of the manufacturing sector in our country and 
to express my hope that we can find ways to continue to work together 
on a bipartisan basis to keep our economic momentum going in the year 
and the Congress ahead.


                     Tribute to Departing Senators

  As I close, I would also like to thank those of our colleagues who 
will be leaving the Senate after the New Year.
  It is an incredible privilege to work in this Chamber and to 
represent the people. Every day I am awed by the dedication and talent 
of many of my colleagues, public servants who come to work to fight for 
their States and their government.
  To those who are ending their service in the Senate, know that I 
value your friendship and partnership. It has been an honor to work 
with you, and I thank you for all you have done for our Nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of some of the 
public lands provisions that were included in this year's National 
Defense Authorization Act. Before I do so, I wish to recognize the work 
Senators Levin and Inhofe have put into this bill and their dedication 
to reach an agreement with the House so that this bill could move 
forward on time, as it has done over the past 50 years.
  As a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I hear every day 
about the sacrifice our servicemembers make to protect our country. 
Passing the authorization bill that helps ensure they have the 
equipment they need and the resources required to meet the mission they 
are tasked with is very important.
  While I am pleased the Senate will be moving forward on this bill, I 
wish to note that the bill's reduction in servicemembers' benefits 
concerns me. I do believe Members should have had the chance and the 
right to debate and amend it, and I hope the Senate will have the 
opportunity to do so in the future.
  This year the final Defense bill includes several Nevada public land 
priorities that will spur economic development and job creation in our 
State while enhancing U.S. national security. I have been working on 
many of those proposals since I was first elected to Congress in 2006.
  I thank incoming Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chair 
Lisa Murkowski for her leadership and work on this public lands 
package. We have been working together for many years on many of the 
bills included in the package, and I am pleased to see they are finally 
getting across the finish line.
  Let me first clarify that just because some of these bills are 
related to public lands does not mean they have a direct relationship 
to defense and protecting our national security. My Nevada Copper bill 
will protect domestic production of copper--the second most used 
mineral at the Department of Defense--as well as directly benefit two 
bases that are located in the State of Nevada.

[[Page 17551]]

  As the Presiding Officer knows, roughly 85 percent of the land in 
Nevada is controlled by the Federal Government. This presents our local 
and State governments with many unique challenges. Our communities' 
economies are directly tied to the way the Federal Government manages 
those lands. They often work closely with me to develop legislative 
solutions to their problems.
  Whereas out East local governments can acquire land on their own to 
build public works projects, out West, unfortunately, we have to get 
the permission of Congress. That is why reducing the Federal estate and 
increasing access to our public lands has been one of my top priorities 
in Congress, and this package goes a long way toward accomplishing 
these goals. It resolves over 60 of these types of issues throughout 
the West. In total, over 110,000 acres of land will be removed from 
Federal ownership and utilized for mineral production, timber 
production, infrastructure projects, and other community development. 
In addition, it releases approximately 26,000 acres of current 
wilderness study areas, which unlocks lands to be used for multiple 
use.
  It is very important to discuss the eight Nevada provisions today to 
show my colleagues in the Senate the many hoops our western communities 
have to go through to take the same steps many eastern communities can 
accomplish in a single day.
  The Lyon County Economic Development and Conservation Act is a jobs 
bill I first introduced while in the House, but it has been held up by 
the Senate for many years because of gridlock.
  This bill allows the city of Erring to partner with Nevada Copper to 
develop roughly 12,500 acres of land surrounding the Nevada Copper 
Pumpkin Hollow Project site to be used for mining activities, 
industrial and renewable energy development, and recreation.
  Senate passage is the final hurdle to more than 1,000 new jobs at an 
average wage of over $85,000 per year. The mine will contribute nearly 
$25 million in property and net proceeds taxes per year that would be 
distributed to the State, to Lyon County, their schools, the hospital 
district, and the Mason Valley Fire Protection District.
  In addition, Nevada Copper plans to invest $80 million in 
infrastructure for the mine and processing facilities that can be 
utilized to support other land uses and economic development.
  This bill will transform the local economy of one of the counties in 
our Nation that are struggling most during this recent economic 
downturn.
  As I said before, copper is the second most used mineral at the 
Department of Defense and is considered an essential mineral for 
weapons production. Copper is also the primary mineral from which other 
strategic and critical metals, such as rhenium, are derived. A domestic 
supply of this important resource greatly benefits our national 
security.
  Second, there is a provision in this package that will allow Naval 
Air Station Fallon to acquire over 400 acres of BLM land for a safety 
arc for an explosive ordnance-handling facility and to construct much 
needed family housing at the station. Both of these plans will greatly 
benefit mission operations and the quality of life for our brave 
servicemembers serving there. The station first asked for these lands 
over 20 years ago. I am pleased their wait can finally come to an end.
  Third, the package includes the Pine Forest Recreation Enhancement 
Act--a proposal that has been in the works in Humboldt County for 
nearly a decade. Just north of the Black Rock Desert, the Pine Forest 
offers a diverse landscape of sagebrush, aspen, and rock formations. 
Scenic lakes and reservoirs offer world-class trout fisheries. From the 
ranchers who make their livelihood on grazing allotments to 
conservationists intent on preserving a rugged landscape, anyone 
familiar with the place agrees it is special.
  In addition to conserving these areas, the bill releases areas from 
wilderness that needs watershed restoration and treatment due to a high 
wildfire threat. It also provides for the construction of additional 
campsites and accommodations for motorized camping.
  The initial work on the Pine Forest bill was grassroots-driven, 
transparent, and ultimately supported unanimously by all stakeholders 
and local governments in this county.
  Fourth, the package includes the Elko Motocross and Tribal Conveyance 
Act--another bill I first introduced in the 111th Congress as a Member 
of the House. The commonsense bill conveys 275 acres of BLM lands to 
Elko County for a public motocross park. Additionally, it provides 373 
acres to the Elko Band of Te-Moak Tribe for housing and tribal economic 
development.
  Outdoor recreation and tourism are such important parts of life in 
Nevada. Opening up this land will benefit the residents of northern 
Nevada for years to come.
  Fifth, this land package also includes the Las Vegas Valley Public 
Land and Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument Act, which is the 
culmination of several years of effort to conserve the ancient Tule 
Springs fossil beds while providing job-creation opportunities and 
critical civilian and military infrastructure that will be necessary to 
meet the needs of the Las Vegas Valley.
  After working with stakeholders at every level, I am pleased that we 
can navigate a path forward for southern Nevada.
  While serving in the House, I also introduced legislation in both the 
110th and 111th Congresses to convey parcels of BLM land to the Nellis 
Air Force Base to create an off-highway vehicle park in the Nellis 
Dunes and to convey land to the Nevada System of Higher Education to 
expand educational opportunities for southern Nevadans.
  Those smaller bills were ultimately included in S. 973 in this 
Congress, so I am pleased that 6 years of work on this Tule Springs 
legislation will finally become a reality.
  The final three Nevada bills included in the lands package are newer 
proposals but achieve long-term economic development objectives that 
the affected communities have long asked for.
  The Fernley Economic Self-Determination Act provides Fernley the 
opportunity to purchase up to 9,114 acres of Federal land within the 
city boundaries for the purpose of economic development.
  Fernley was incorporated in 2001. Since incorporation, the city has 
been working with private business partners and State and Federal 
regional agencies to develop a long-term economic development plan. 
These parcels have significant potential for commercial and industrial 
development, agricultural activities, and the expansion of community 
events.
  Similarly, the Carlin Economic Self-Determination Act allows Carlin 
to purchase up to 1,329 acres of BLM lands. This city, located in Elko 
County, is completely landlocked by the Federal Government. Without 
this legislation, it would be impossible for their leaders to meet the 
demands for the expansion of their growing population needs.
  Finally, the Storey County provision conveys over 1,700 acres of BLM 
lands to Virginia City. These properties have been occupied for decades 
by individuals who purchased them or acquired them legally; yet their 
continued residency is trespass, according to the Federal Government.
  It is a very burdensome oversight by the Federal Government that must 
be resolved for the sake of my constituents. They have struggled for 
years, haunted by this error that is the result through no fault of 
their own.
  These small public lands proposals are going to make a major impact 
on Nevada's economy. They have been developed at the local level and 
signed off on by the local communities.
  I understand my colleagues' concerns that they would have liked the 
opportunity to debate and vote on more amendments to this bill. I, too, 
filed a number of amendments that I wished to see considered, and I 
will continue pushing those priorities next year. But

[[Page 17552]]

right now Congress has a rare opportunity to pass this public lands 
package that enables important mining, energy development, ranching, 
and timber work to go forward, generating economic and employment 
opportunities for my State, other States, and local residents.
  Let's get the government off these Nevadans' backs and allow them to 
do what they do best; that is, create jobs.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from Maryland.


                             Appropriations

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor today during the 
consideration of the national defense authorization to bring my 
colleagues up to date on the appropriations bill.
  As we know, the continuing resolution expires on Thursday at 
midnight, but I am here to talk about some good news. The 
Appropriations Committee on both sides of the dome--the House 
Appropriations Committee and the Senate, working in a conference 
committee--has completed its work. This legislation is now as we speak 
heading to the Rules Committee and to the House. Hopefully it will head 
to the House for tomorrow, on to the Senate tomorrow night and into 
Friday. This means no government shutdown, no government on auto pilot, 
and we fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year for 
2015, except Homeland Security, which will be a continuing resolution.
  What we are talking about here is a monumental achievement. It is a 
monumental achievement showing how we can work together, we can govern, 
and we can get the job done.
  Working on a bipartisan basis in the Senate, we worked in our 
subcommittees, and we held our hearings. We held 60 hearings in 60 days 
and did a good bit of our markups. We were able to work on our Senate 
appropriations. Over in the House, they did the same thing. But then, 
alas, when we got to September, we had to go on a continuing resolution 
until December 11.
  I, as a rule, don't like continuing resolutions. We have 12 
subcommittees, and I had hoped, under the time I chaired the committee 
and held the gavel, that we could consider one bill at a time and bring 
it to the Senate floor. Alas, partisan politics, gridlock, deadlock, 
gamesmanship, and showmanship prevented all of that.
  But you know what, we on the Appropriations Committee, working with 
our vice chair, Senator Shelby of Alabama, kept ourselves on track. 
Then we met in the conference committee, first our subcommittee chairs 
and then Chairman Rogers, Senator Shelby, Congresswoman Lowey, and 
myself. We worked together on a $1 trillion spending bill. That number 
is breathtaking, but we need to remember that over $550 billion is in 
national defense. The rest is in domestic discretionary. That means 
everything from veterans, to foreign aid, to school aid, and also 
funding innovation.
  I will talk more explicitly about the bill when it comes to the 
Senate floor. But for today I wanted everyone to know we are keeping 
the process going. We actually made the process work. We showed that we 
could govern. We worked across the aisle. We worked across the dome. We 
practiced civility. We argued. We debated. We fought. You know, 
sometimes you give a little, you take a little, but you stand for them 
all. And I want everyone to know we were able to concentrate and 
compromise what I call capitulation on principle.
  So I wanted to say to my colleagues: Stay steady, stay strong. We 
expect that the House will pass its rule sometime after 3 o'clock 
today. That is the framework that enables them to go to the floor 
tomorrow. They will follow their own rule and hopefully that bill will 
pass. If it does pass, it will come to the Senate, and we will 
immediately take it up under the rules the two leaders will have worked 
on and established. So we look forward to completing the job on the 
Appropriations Committee within the next 72 hours.
  I hope this update is of value to my colleagues as they plan their 
schedule and wish to participate in the debate and in the discussion. 
But it is not whether it is of value to us, it is whether it is of 
value to the Nation. I think what the voters in the last election said 
was: We have lost confidence in your ability to govern.
  I hope over the next 72 hours, by the way we will bring this bill to 
the floor, we will take a significant step in regaining that confidence 
and getting out of this whole game of government by crisis, government 
by artificially imposed deadlines, where all it is, is more drama than 
debate.
  We would like to get back to the regular order. Hopefully, though, we 
now can move forward on our bill.
  I thank the Chair for his attention, and I yield the floor. I note 
the Senator from Arizona is on the floor so I will not ask for a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.


                         Tribute to Tom Coburn

  Mr. McCAIN. Today, I would like to offer words of tribute to my 
departing colleague, Senator Tom Coburn, whose service exemplifies 
standards of purposefulness, integrity, and decency, to which we should 
all aspire and whose example ought to inspire the service of new and 
returning Senators alike.
  I am going to miss an awful lot our colleague from Oklahoma. I have 
always admired Tom for the strength of his convictions and the courage 
and candor with which he expresses them day after day. ``The No. 1 
thing people should do in Congress,'' Tom once said, ``is stay true to 
their heart.'' No one in the history of this institution has ever 
followed that injunction more faithfully than Tom Coburn has.
  Tom Coburn has an unshakable faith in the goodness of America, and he 
has worked diligently with others when he could and alone, if 
necessary, to make sure government respects the people we serve--
respects their hopes and aspirations, their concerns and sacrifices. He 
has never forgotten he is the people's servant first and last, and they 
have never had a more genuine and determined champion.
  I think Tom has often acted as the conscience of the Senate. He can 
be unmovable on matters of principle when to do otherwise would harm or 
do no good for the country. Tom Coburn is sometimes called ``Dr. No,'' 
affectionately most, if not all, of the time. He has held up more 
legislation that he thought ill served the public interest than any 
other Member of this body. He even placed a hold on one of his own 
bills that he thought no longer met his high standard of accountability 
after it was reported out of committee. I don't think the American 
taxpayer has ever had a greater defender than Tom Coburn.
  I like to think I have taken a few principled stands when the 
situation has warranted it, and I have made myself an occasional 
nuisance in service to what I thought was a good cause. But I have 
never been so conscientious that I felt obliged to defeat my own 
legislation. That is a pretty high standard of personal responsibility 
to meet and a character test of the first order. I am not sure many of 
us would pass it. I wouldn't. But then, as all his colleagues can 
attest, Tom Coburn is a person of the very highest character. He 
possesses the highest virtues--courage, humility, compassion--in an 
abundance. It has been an honor to serve with him.
  As principled as he is, as unwavering as he can be when he believes 
it necessary, he has also been a brave and determined proponent of 
compromise when he believed it served the public interest, when it 
would help build a more prosperous and secure society with more 
opportunities for more people and brighter futures for our children.
  We always have detractors. It comes with the job. Whether Tom was 
standing on principle or seeking a principled compromise, he stood up 
to criticism. He stood up to pressure. He stood up to threats and 
insults and whatever negative personal consequences he might suffer. He 
stood up to whatever came his way to do what was right for his country. 
He stood up for the American people, no matter how difficult it was. 
What better can you say about a public servant?
  Tom and I worked together on a lot of things. We fought together to 
end earmarks and opposed other forms of

[[Page 17553]]

wasteful spending. We worked together on oversight projects for the 
stimulus bill and highway trust fund spending. We also fought for a 
long time to let veterans decide where they could best receive health 
care. We made good progress on some issues and not enough on others, 
but Tom Coburn was always an example and an inspiration to me.
  If I could speak more personally, Tom has been more than a paragon to 
me and to other Members of the Senate. He is first and foremost a kind, 
considerate, and loyal friend--a friend in good times and bad, a friend 
who brings out the best in you because he believes in the best part of 
you. I said earlier Tom Coburn sees the innate goodness in the American 
people. He also sees it in his colleagues, even when it isn't apparent 
to other observers.
  We have shared happy times together, Tom and I, but Tom has the 
instinct and the kindness to be the kind of friend who is there when 
you need him--when you need him most, in moments that aren't so happy.
  We all lead pretty good lives here. We get the chance to serve the 
greatest country in the world and, on occasion, to make history. We are 
honored and feted and praised more than we deserve. But as all human 
beings do, we have moments of worry and doubt and disappointment. Tom 
always has the knack for showing up when I need cheering up. He has 
made the point over the years of being company when you most need it.
  Friendship is a virtue to Tom, and he means to live a virtuous life. 
You could be working on something with him or opposing each other on an 
issue, it doesn't matter. If you need him, he will be there for you 
with a kind word, a piece of advice, a little encouragement or just 
good company. There are too few people like that in anyone's life not 
to cherish the hell out of those who are. I cherish my friendship with 
Tom Coburn, and I always will.
  The Senate will be a poorer place without Tom Coburn to set an 
example of public service for the rest of us. But in gratitude to him 
for his leadership and friendship, I will try a little harder to live 
up to his standards, and I hope he will let me know when I fall short.
  Mr. President, 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.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              The Tax Code

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, there was an opportunity this session to 
work together in a bipartisan way to provide certainty around the Tax 
Code for families and farmers and businesses, at least for 2014 and 
2015. There may still be a small window of opportunity to get things 
done. I certainly support doing that, if we can. But I want to speak to 
the importance of having some certainty, at least through the end of 
2015, as it relates to our tax policy for investing, for the economy, 
and for homeowners to make decisions.
  Back in April, thanks to the leadership of Chairman Wyden and Ranking 
Member Hatch, those of us on the Senate Finance Committee worked 
together closely and passed the EXPIRE Act, a bipartisan bill that 
would renew tax provisions for 2014 and 2015 so that again people could 
plan, businesses, and farmers, at least through that 2-year period. It 
would give businesses and families across the country the certainty 
they desperately need.
  Unbelievably, back at the time when we brought it to the floor, after 
a bipartisan effort, Republicans in the Senate filibustered it and we 
could not move it forward. So we have been trying to get this 2-year 
bill done as the first year has been ticking away. We are now at the 
end of the first year of the tax bill, and, unfortunately, instead of 
having a 2-year bill, we now have a bill from the House that contains 
what we call tax extenders--extending tax policy for the economy, from 
research and development to homeowners to depreciation for investments 
and jobs. We have something that is only extended to the end of this 
year. As our chairman has said, it is a 3-week bill. By the time we get 
done, it will probably be a 2-week bill.
  We need to do more. The chairman, ranking member, and many of us are 
still trying to do everything we can to get the House to agree to 
something with more certainty than 2 or 3 weeks. I think it is an 
embarrassment for the Congress that we are not able to come together 
and pass the EXPIRE Act to be able to give more certainty.
  There is a glimmer of hope though on a piece of tax reform I wish to 
mention. Frankly, there is disagreement on this on our side of the 
aisle, and I respectfully disagree with those in the White House on 
this as well. But there is a bill I hope will move on the suspension 
calendar in the House around charitable giving.
  I can't imagine at this time of year of charitable giving, as we come 
up to the end of the year and people are making decisions about where 
to place their dollars, what kinds of causes and so on, that we 
couldn't come together on a bipartisan bill to deal with donations to 
food banks and conservation easements that protect our land for the 
future, that make sure we are not plowing up our land and putting more 
CO2 into the air right at the time we are trying to deal 
with climate issues--land protection, forestry protection for the 
future; dealing with investments in our research institutions, dealing 
with investments in important areas near and dear to my heart--such as 
the city of Detroit, where our foundations are playing such a critical 
role in making the investments, whether it is in transportation 
infrastructure, whether it is job training, whether it is rebuilding 
the neighborhoods to be able to turn Detroit around. I believe we are 
going to be able to do that. I know we are going to be able to do that. 
But a major reason has been the foundations--the Kresge Foundation, the 
Keller Foundation. There are so many that have been there.
  So we have an opportunity prior to going into a larger debate on tax 
reform to actually take a piece of this, which normally would be, on 
its substance, very bipartisan, and actually be able to get that done. 
I am hopeful we will be able to do that before the end of the year 
because of the important provisions in it.
  I go back to though the broader tax bill being sent as a 1-year 
renewal from the House of Representatives and, as I said, at most is a 
3-week bill. By the time it is done, it may end up being a 2-week bill 
at this point in time. I can't believe people honestly, with a straight 
face, are calling this tax policy to be able to do this.
  There are homeowners who lost their job during the recession and can 
no longer afford their mortgage payments. They have had their homes 
foreclosed on or maybe they have been able to do a short sale with 
their mortgage lender or the bank. For the past year--11 months and 10 
days--these families have had no way to know whether we were going to 
renew the mortgage forgiveness tax relief bill, which I was proud to 
author as a bipartisan bill back in 2007, which we have continued to 
renew because we still have families struggling from the recession in 
terms of their loan.
  If we can renew this bill, it will spare families from having to pay 
income tax on the difference between their mortgage and the value of 
their home. So if in fact they get loan forgiveness or can work 
something out with the bank--and if in fact $20,000 is forgiven on the 
mortgage or $30,000 or $40,000--they don't end up paying taxes on that 
as income, which is what will happen if we don't get something done.
  But we are looking at the fact that these folks, going into 2015, at 
a time when they are trying to decide what to do on their homes--
whether they can keep their mortgage--will be right back in the same 
situation of not knowing whether they are going to owe thousands of 
dollars' worth of tax going into next year.
  We are seeing a lot of folks trying to keep their homes who had to 
cut corners in every which way--parents stopped paying toward their 
kids' college fund or they put off buying new

[[Page 17554]]

clothes or they canceled vacations or plans to visit their relatives 
while they are trying to figure out how to keep a roof over their head. 
Obviously there are many things that need to be done to support 
families, but one piece of tax policy that has given them some ability 
to plan has been this mortgage tax forgiveness bill.
  What we are saying is: OK. For 2 weeks you can know that you can 
refinance with the bank--not next year. We kept you hanging for all of 
2014, but for 2 weeks or 3 weeks we will give you some certainty.
  So next year more families are going to be stuck with the same 
wrenching decisions they have this year if we can't at least get a 2-
year bill.
  When we look at other areas where folks will be left hanging, we have 
a very important area of the economy creating jobs every day in wind 
energy. There is a huge supply chain--as the Presiding Officer knows, 
as someone who cares deeply about manufacturing--from the making of 
turbines to the installation in the field, to the operations, to the 
maintenance, all of these are connected to American jobs, good-paying 
jobs. In fact, one of the big turbines has 8,000 parts in it. Somebody 
is making those parts. I would suggest to everyone that we can make 
every one of those in Michigan. I am sure we can make them in other 
places as well, although we would love to make them in Michigan. But 
what the industry doesn't know is whether the production tax credit 
which they depend on will be renewed for more than 3 weeks at the end 
of the year.
  In fact, what the House did say is: You have 3 weeks to make business 
decisions about hiring new people, growing your business, building more 
parts for the winter. You have 3 weeks. Go get them--in 3 weeks. So 
they can't make business decisions, and they are going to have to cut.
  In the meantime, that means layoffs, similar to the 30,000 workers 
who were laid off when Congress waited to the very last minute in 2012; 
30,000 people were laid off when the same thing happened in 2012 when 
the production tax credit renewed at the last minute. Even if this bill 
passes, extending the production tax credit this week through the end 
of the year may be too late for 30,000 people, right before the 
holidays. Merry Christmas. Thirty thousand people not being able to 
have their job extended, people who could help us lead the world in 
clean energy production, who could help us develop energy here to be 
less dependent on foreign oil, but because we don't have the fortitude 
to extend this even after we had a bipartisan bill--the EXPIRE Act--
come out of the Finance Committee last spring, they are looking at job 
losses.
  So 30,000 families are putting holiday gifts on their credit card not 
knowing whether they are going to be able to make payments when the 
bills arrive.
  Businesses in the wind power industry make investment decisions on 
what their taxes will be, similar to any other business, 5 years, 10 
years, 15 years into the future.
  There have been, by the way, tax breaks for Big Oil for almost 100 
years; the first one in 1916 embedded in the Tax Code, never having to 
be renewed so long-term business decisions can be made. But for their 
competitors to create jobs and bring prices down through things such as 
wind or solar or biofuel, it is a slog every year, every 2 years to try 
to keep these industries going.
  Is that fair? It is absolutely not fair. We ought to have the same 
kind of tax policy. If we are embedding the Tax Code provisions to 
support oil production, we should be doing the same for wind, the same 
for solar, the same for biofuels.
  What Republicans are doing when they force us into a situation where 
it is only a 3-week extension is they are basically telling Americans 
businesses: Don't invest. Don't hire people. We don't want competition 
to bring prices down on gasoline or prices in electricity. We don't 
want you to do that. We are unwilling to commit to something that will 
create jobs beyond somebody we have been fighting to protect for almost 
100 years.
  So this is a great concern to me. In the process, Americans deserve 
better. Our businesses and our innovators deserve better. We go out and 
say we want new innovation to create new kinds of jobs. That is 
happening. Then the doors are shut over and over again or it takes 
forever to pry open the door: You have 3 weeks, the door is open, and 
then it shuts.
  Let me talk about another area I am deeply concerned about where 
people will be hurt if we do not pass the 2-year EXPIRE Act that we put 
together in the Finance Committee in a bipartisan way; that is, 
salaried workers such as those at Delphi auto parts manufacturer--which 
used to be a part of General Motors. During the 2008 rescue of the auto 
industry, somehow the salaried workers slipped through the cracks in 
terms of losing portions of their pensions, their health care coverage, 
and their insurance, and it is not fair.
  One woman who worked at Delphi for over 30 years lost nearly half her 
pension and all of her health care coverage, which she needed for her 
husband who suffers from chronic pain.
  A manager who worked at a Delphi facility in Michigan was so devoted 
to the people he supervised that he volunteered to retire rather than 
lay off some workers. Then 4 months after his retirement, he found out 
he was losing 40 percent of his pension and all of his health care 
coverage. Most of what was left out of his pension will go toward 
paying the cost of his health care, and it was devastating to him and 
his family.
  So we have in this extenders bill, this EXPIRE Act, the health 
coverage tax credit which was created for people such as these people. 
I am proud to be a coauthor with Senator Brown, who has been a real 
leader on this for people who have lost their benefits that were 
supposedly guaranteed to them. It does not restore their pension, but 
this credit pays 72.5 percent of their health care premiums, making it 
possible for retirees to afford coverage similar to what they could 
have earned when they were working. It frankly helps people who can't 
get help in other ways, who fell through the cracks.
  The credit expired at the end of 2013, and the bipartisan bill we 
passed in the spring, in April, renewed that credit. I was very pleased 
we were able to put this in the bill and thought we were on our way 
again to help people throughout this year who have been waiting and 
waiting.
  Again, when we passed this in April it was filibustered on the floor 
by the Republicans. Now we are at 3 weeks left before the end of the 
year and what we get from the House is a bill that is retroactive for 
2014, but it does not even include the health coverage tax credit. So 
even though this is retroactive for 2014, the people involved--the 
salaried workers who lost pensions who have been getting some help for 
their health care at least--will not even get that for this year. There 
are 20,000 Delphi retirees not only in Michigan and Ohio, but 
Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois, all who are watching 
right now this process in the Senate and the House to see what will 
happen, and are reaching out to their House Members and Senate 
Members--Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, and 
Illinois.
  To renew all the other tax provisions but cancel the HCTC is a cruel 
trick to play on families and certainly is underscored in terms of the 
holiday season we are getting into now. It is time for our colleagues 
across the aisle to stop forcing Americans to play a guessing game 
about their future taxes or their health care.
  I regret that the clock has been ticking and running out and left us 
with no time at this point to get the fairness in the Tax Code that we 
need. There is still time if we wanted to to pass this EXPIRE Act and 
send it back to the House, and I am all for it, and I know our 
chairman, Senator Wyden, has been working night and day with colleagues 
across the aisle to try to make that happen. If it is too late for this 
year, if the clock runs out, shamefully, and we return next year with 
our Republican colleagues in the majority, I would suggest a New Year's 
resolution to stop doing retroactive extensions--stop doing retroactive 
extensions when

[[Page 17555]]

it involves investments that people have to make that they are not 
going to be able to do retroactively or decisions about health care or 
decisions about a home. Start getting serious about making long-term 
economic decisions.
  I know the Presiding Officer agrees with me on this and has spoken 
with me frequently on this.
  Whether it is tax policy, health care policy, infrastructure policy, 
we need to make long-term decisions and support policies so that 
businesses can make long-term decisions.
  Finally, we need to deliver certainty for families, for small 
businesses, for manufacturers, for those in alternative energy, for all 
who are working hard to invest in America across this country. Stop 
doing retroactive extensions, start working seriously on long-term tax 
policy and deliver certainty for families and businesses across the 
country. I think there is still time, if we wanted, to at least give 
the certainty of next year. Shame on the Congress if that does not 
happen. But I hope that we will at least commit ourselves that this is 
the last time this is done this way.
  Thank you, Mr. President. 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. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Decline of the Middle Class

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the American people must make some very 
fundamental decisions in the coming years, and the most important of 
them is whether we continue the status quo of American society, and 
that is in terms of our economics and our politics which includes a 40-
year decline of our middle class. Let me repeat that.
  We are not just talking about what is happening today. We are not 
talking about the Wall Street crash of 2008. We are talking about a 40-
year decline of the American middle class and an ongoing and growing 
gap between the very wealthy and everybody else. That is the reality of 
America now.
  We can continue the same old, same old, or we can develop a bold 
economic agenda that begins the process of creating the millions of 
jobs we desperately need, an agenda which raises wages so that most of 
the new jobs being created are not low wage or part time, an agenda 
which protects our environment, and an agenda which enables us to join 
the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all 
people as a right. That is the issue of our time. Do we continue the 
status quo, continue the disappearance of the middle class, continue 
the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else, or do we have 
the courage to come up with an agenda that stands for working families 
and raises wages and provides for our kids and our seniors?
  As part of that decision in my view is the reality that we cannot go 
forward unless we deal with another very important question, and that 
is, do we as a nation have the courage to take on the enormous economic 
and political power of the billionaire class? I know many of my 
colleagues don't like to talk about it. We talk about this and we talk 
about that, but most Americans in their gut understand that our 
economic and political life are controlled by a small number of very 
wealthy people and institutions, including but not limited to Wall 
Street, the oil companies, the insurance companies, the drug companies, 
the military-industrial complex, et cetera, and all of their lobbyists 
who flood Capitol Hill--trying to get this or that provision in tax 
bills and everyplace else--and, of course, their power in terms of 
campaign contributions, and especially since this disastrous Supreme 
Court Citizens United decision. It means the billionaire class can put 
unlimited sums of money into electing candidates who represent their 
interests.
  Those are the most important questions of our time. Do we have the 
courage to take on the handful of billionaire special interests who 
wield so much economic and political power? Do we have the will to push 
forward an economic agenda that works for working families and not just 
for the very wealthy?
  The long-term deterioration of the middle class, accelerated by the 
Wall Street crash of 2008, has not been a pretty sight. Today we have 
more wealth and income inequality than any major country on Earth and 
the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider. The 
top 1 percent now owns about 41 percent of the financial wealth of our 
country, while the bottom 60 percent owns all of 1.7 percent. The top 1 
percent owns 41 percent of the financial wealth, the bottom 60 percent 
owns 1.7 percent. In fact, amazingly enough, the top one-tenth of 1 
percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of the 
American people. Does anyone believe that is what America is supposed 
to be about, where the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns as much wealth 
as the bottom 90 percent?
  Today we have the absurd situation, the obscene situation, where one 
family, the Walton family, the owners of Walmart, are worth about $148 
billion. That is more wealth in that one family than the bottom 40 
percent of the American people.
  Today in the United States we have the highest rate of childhood 
poverty of any major country on Earth. About one-quarter of our kids 
get nutrition through food stamps, and we are the only industrialized 
country--major country--that does not guarantee health care to all 
people as a right.
  We once led the world in terms of the percentage of our people who 
graduated college, but today in a highly competitive global economy we 
are now in 12th place.
  In terms of infrastructure, the United States used to have the 
finest, most envied infrastructure in the world. Today, as I think 
every citizen of this country knows, our infrastructure, our roads, our 
bridges, rail, water systems, airports, dams are virtually collapsing. 
The American Society of Civil Engineers tells us that we need to spend 
$3 trillion just to bring our infrastructure up to par. But with 
infrastructure spending now at its lowest level since 1947, we rank 
16th in the world in terms of infrastructure according to the World 
Economic Forum.
  So once we led the world in terms of the numbers of percentages of 
people graduating college; today we are 12th. Once we led the world in 
terms of the strength of our infrastructure; today we are the 16th. But 
we do have the dubious distinction of being first in terms of childhood 
poverty of any major country.
  Real unemployment today is not what the official unemployment states 
of 5.8 percent; it is over 11 percent when you include those people who 
have given up looking for work or are working part time. Youth 
unemployment is over 18 percent.
  We hear a lot about Ferguson, MO, and that is a very important issue, 
but we don't hear enough about the reality that African-American youth 
unemployment is over 30 percent.
  Today in this country millions of Americans are working longer hours 
for lower wages. In inflation-adjusted-for dollars, the median male 
worker--listen to this; this is really quite unbelievable and it tells 
us a little bit as to why the American people are angry. The median 
male worker--that worker right in the middle of the economy--last year 
earned $783 less than he made 41 years ago--$783 less than he made 41 
years ago in inflation-accounted-for dollars. In the explosion of 
technology, the great global economy, all of the great free trade 
agreements, and that male worker today is earning over $700 less than 
he made in real dollars 41 years ago. The median female worker made 
$1337 less last year than she earned in 2007.
  Since 1999, the median middle-class family has seen its income go 
down by almost $5,000 after adjusting for inflation, now earning less 
this year than a family earned 25 years ago. Are we better off today 
than we were 6 years ago when Bush left office and we were hemorrhaging 
700,000 jobs a month and the financial system was on the verge of

[[Page 17556]]

collapse with a $1.3 trillion deficit? Of course we are. But if you 
look at the trends over the last 40 years, the reality is, the middle 
class in this country is disappearing and almost all new income and 
wealth is going to the people on top.
  The American people must demand that Congress and the White House 
start protecting the interests of working families, not just wealthy 
campaign contributors. We need Federal legislation to put the 
unemployed back to work, raise wages, and make certain that all 
Americans have health care and education in order to live healthy and 
productive lives.
  We can spend hours dissecting and analyzing the problems of American 
society, and in my view, they are worse today than at any time since 
the Great Depression, and if you throw in the planetary crisis of 
climate change, we may have more problems today facing our Nation than 
at any time in a very long period.
  But what I wish to do today is very briefly throw out and discuss 12 
initiatives that I believe, if enacted by the Congress, could begin to 
address the collapse of the middle class and rebuild our economy. I 
will just touch on them briefly.
  No. 1, as I mentioned earlier, our infrastructure is collapsing--our 
roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, airports, railroads, 
and older schools. We spent $3 trillion--or when we take care of the 
last veteran, we have spent $3 trillion fighting a war in Iraq that we 
never should have fought in the first place.
  If over a period of years we were to invest $1 trillion in rebuilding 
our infrastructure, we could create 13 million decent-paying jobs, and 
that is exactly what we have to do. Think of what America would look 
like if you went around the country and saw work being done on roads, 
bridges, and cutting-edge technology for our water plants and 
wastewater plants. We would become more productive and efficient. We 
would put people back to work.
  No. 2, in my view--and I know many of my Republican colleagues don't 
agree, but the scientific community is united when they say climate 
change is real, it is caused by human activity, and if we do not 
reverse and substantially cut back carbon emissions, this planet will 
become increasingly uninhabitable for our kids and our grandchildren. 
In my view, we must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels 
and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy, such as wind, solar, 
geothermal, et cetera.
  When we address energy efficiency and sustainable energy, not only do 
we lead the world in transforming our energy system and reversing 
climate change, but we also create a significant number of meaningful 
and important jobs.
  No. 3, in my view, instead of giving tax breaks to large corporations 
which shut down in America and go to China, we want to invest in new 
economic models to increase job creation and productivity, and that is 
giving workers the opportunity to own their own businesses. We have 
some of that in Vermont, and I know in Ohio there are worker-owned 
businesses where workers are more productive and feel better about 
their jobs. I would rather invest in that than in corporations that 
will shut down in this country and move abroad.
  No. 4, I think most people understand that when you have a union to 
negotiate and engage in collective bargaining, wages are higher and 
working conditions are better. Today corporate opposition to union 
organizing makes it extremely difficult for workers to join a union. We 
need legislation which makes it clear that when a majority of workers 
signs cards in support of a union, they can have that union.
  No. 5, the Federal minimum wage today is a starvation wage of $7.25 
an hour. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. People who 
work 40 hours a week should not live in poverty.
  No. 6, women workers today earn about 78 cents on the dollar to what 
their male counterparts earn doing the same work. That is not 
acceptable. We need equal pay for equal work. We need pay equity in our 
country, and we have to pass that legislation.
  No. 7, an issue that we don't talk about enough, and, in fact, has 
had bipartisan support for many decades, is our disastrous trade 
policy, NAFTA, CAFTA, and permanent normal trade relations with China. 
The simple fact is these trade policies have been a disaster for the 
American worker. Since 2001, we have lost more than 60,000 factories in 
this country and more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing 
jobs. Not all of that is attributable to bad trade policies, but a lot 
of it is. We need to rethink our trade policies and demand that 
corporate America invest in the United States of America and not in 
China.
  I know that is a radical idea. Imagine going shopping in a department 
store where we can actually purchase products made in America and not 
in China, but I think we should be doing that.
  No. 8, we are not going to be a successful economy unless our young 
people have the ability to get the college education they need 
regardless of the income of their families. Right now it is 
increasingly difficult for working families to afford college. Many of 
our young people are coming out of college deeply in debt. In this area 
we are moving in exactly the wrong direction. Forty, fifty years ago, 
tuition was virtually free at some of the great public universities in 
America, such as the University of California, New York City, and State 
colleges around country. Today it is unaffordable.
  We need to radically rethink higher education in this country. Our 
goal is that everyone, regardless of income, should be able to get a 
quality college education and not come out in debt.
  No. 9, I think everybody understands the enormous stranglehold that 
Wall Street has on our economy. Banking is supposed to be the 
facilitator to get money out in the productive economy where companies 
are producing products and services and not see Wall Street or 
financial institutions as an end in itself, but that is exactly what we 
have right now. We have six financial institutions in this country that 
have assets equivalent to over 60 percent of the GDP of the United 
States of America. That is too big, and it gives them too much economic 
and political power. In my view, they must be broken up and we must 
bring about a more competitive financial system where money is getting 
out to the real economy so businesses can create real jobs.
  No. 10, and many people don't know this, but the United States is the 
only major country on Earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all 
people as a right. Yet we end up spending almost twice as much per 
capita on health care as any other Nation. In my strong opinion, if we 
want health care for all and we want to do it in a cost-effective way, 
we need to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system.
  No. 11, today in this great Nation, millions of seniors are living in 
poverty, and that number is growing, and we have the highest rate of 
childhood poverty of any major country. We must strengthen the social 
safety net, not weaken it. Instead of talking about cutting Social 
Security or cutting Medicare or cutting Medicaid or cutting nutrition 
programs, we should be expanding those programs. This is a great 
country, and we should not have millions of people wondering how they 
are going to be able to buy medicine for their illness or heat their 
homes in the wintertime. We have to expand the social safety net for 
our kids, our seniors, and our vulnerable populations.
  Last, but certainly not least, at a time of massive wealth and income 
inequality, we need a progressive tax system in this country which is 
based on ability to pay. It is not acceptable that major profitable 
corporations have paid nothing in recent years in Federal income taxes 
and that corporate CEOs in this country often enjoy an effective tax 
rate which is lower than their secretaries'.
  We are losing about $100 billion a year from companies that stash 
their profits in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other tax havens. We 
need real tax reform. We need to end all of these corporate tax 
loopholes so we

[[Page 17557]]

have the revenue we need to do the important tasks in front of us to 
rebuild this country.
  With that, I think the American people have some fundamental choices 
to make. Do we continue the status quo from an economic perspective and 
political perspective or do we demand that Congress start listening to 
the pain of the middle class and working families of this country and 
start producing legislation which rebuilds our crumbling middle class?
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator 
from Vermont.
  I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, of up 
to 10 minutes, that Senator Manchin be recognized for his remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Financial Institutions

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, every year about this time--actually every 
few months, or maybe every month--there are attempts by Wall Street to 
again change the rules, cut back consumer protection laws, and change 
the regulations that protect the American public against Wall Street 
greed.
  It happens almost weekly, it seems, in the Financial Services 
Committee in the House of Representatives. There are attempts in the 
Agriculture Committee, beaten back by Senator Stabenow, to her credit, 
and attempts in the banking committee, beaten back by Chairman Johnson, 
to his credit.
  Almost every week, it seems, there are efforts by Wall Street to 
undermine the protections that we were able to build in under the Dodd-
Frank bill to stop Wall Street from doing to the economy what it did in 
2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. September of 2008 had been preceded by a 
decade of deregulation of the financial industry, decades of lobbying 
by very effective lobbyists for the six biggest Wall Street banks. 
Risky behavior was rewarded with gargantuan profits for the firms and 
multimillion-dollar bonuses for the executives.
  The CEO of one of the largest megabanks in the history of the world--
not just in our country--said: As long as the music is playing, you 
have got to get up and dance. There is a lot of money to be made on 
Wall Street, and they have to take advantage of every loophole, 
particularly those loopholes that their lobbyists create.
  This unmitigated greed led to 8 million people losing their jobs, 7 
million losing their homes after being foreclosed on because the 
financial system lacked the necessary safeguards to protect Wall 
Street. Dodd-Frank was supposed to end all of that. It has made 
progress by preventing taxpayer bailouts for banks. Risky derivatives 
trading was one of the central goals of Dodd-Frank. An amendment by 
Senator Lincoln, then the Chair of the Agriculture Committee, brought 
forward an amendment in 2009. Dodd-Frank went through the process.
  The day that President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank bill to protect 
Americans from Wall Street greed, the chief lobbyists for the chief 
financial trade association in this town said: Now it is half-time. 
What does ``now it is half-time'' mean? Well, the bill passed, and Wall 
Street financiers and lobbyists said, we don't like that, but now we 
can go to the regulatory agencies and weaken the rules, delay their 
implementation, sometimes stop some of the rulemaking, and we can go 
back to Congress and continue to lobby and weaken these rules.
  To give you an example of what has happened, in 1995, the 6 largest 
banks in the United States had assets equal to 18 percent of the GDP. I 
don't want to bore people with numbers, but in 1995, the 6 largest 
banks had assets equal to 18 percent of GDP. Today they make up 64 
percent of GDP. The largest six Wall Street banks--everybody knows 
their names--are getting larger and larger, increasing their economic 
power, and as we see almost every day in this Congress and especially 
in the House of Representatives dominated by tea party Republicans and 
people at the beck and call of Wall Street, we see their political 
power growing.
  Under the accounting rules applied by the rest of the world, the 
derivatives holdings of the 6 largest banks--basically insurance policy 
on top of insurance policy on top of insurance policy as financial 
instruments--are 39 percent larger than we think they are, which is a 
difference of about $4 trillion.
  Derivatives were described by Warren Buffett as timebombs--financial 
weapons of mass destruction carrying dangers that are potentially 
lethal. Senator Levin, who is about to retire from the Senate after 36 
years, calls these derivatives nuclear weapons.
  According to the New York Times, bank lobbyists wrote provisions 
dealing with derivatives that will repeal--not to get too technical--
the Lincoln language. And here is what the language in section 716 
says: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal assistance 
may be provided to any swaps entity with respect to any swaps, 
security-based swap, or other activity of the swaps entity.
  This is the language that is now Federal law. This language says no 
more bailouts.
  However, the legislation likely to be in front of us, the omnibus we 
will be facing, because of Wall Street lobbyists, because of Republican 
financial services members caving to special interests, this provision 
that says ``no more bailouts'' is done with. We will see language now 
stripped out of Federal law that says ``no more bailouts.''
  The public needs to understand that if this language passes to strip 
this language out, if this bill passes, that again bailouts can be 
imminent--bailouts brought on by Wall Street greed, bailouts brought on 
by risky trading, now protected by taxpayers. So, in other words, it is 
heads I win, tails you lose. If I make big bets on derivatives and I am 
a Wall Street banker, I make tens of millions of dollars. However, if I 
make big bets and something bad happens, taxpayers get to pay for it. 
That is the problem with stripping out section 716.
  I am not the only one who thinks this. Tom Hoenig, Leader McConnell's 
selection to the FDIC board, supports keeping 716 in the law. Sheila 
Bair--once Senator Bob Dole's chief of staff, President Bush's 
appointment, and then President Obama kept her on as a major Federal 
regulator--she is opposed to repeal, as has the White House opposed the 
repeal.
  Mark Stefanski, a friend of mine from Third Federal in my 
neighborhood in Cleveland, in Slovak Village, which is about an $11 
billion bank on the southeast side of Cleveland. That is a bank which 
makes mortgages. It does not trade in exotic derivatives. He told me: 
You know, banking should be boring. It is not about taking excessive 
risks, especially when those excessive risks are underwritten by 
taxpayers.
  That is what abolishing 716--that is what the repeal of the 716 
language does. It puts taxpayers on the hook in the form of a future 
bailout. It is a subsidy today for the six largest banks. It puts 
taxpayers on the hook in the future, gives all kinds of additional 
incentives for Wall Street bankers to engage in more risky derivatives 
trading, and puts us all again under the possibility of a bank bailout.
  It simply does not make sense. We have the opportunity to reject this 
part of this legislation. We owe it to the families in my State, to 
families in Virginia, to families in Delaware, to families in Georgia, 
and all over this country. That is why we cannot support a measure that 
values corporate greed over working America.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, first I thank my colleague for giving me 
this time, and I acknowledge the hard work he has done.


                            Weiss Nomination

  I represent the great State of West Virginia. It is a rural State 
where we believe in commonsense solutions and values. In the Mountain 
State, we understand the importance of leveling the playing field for 
community institutions and helping small businesses create and keep 
jobs. As a Senator from West Virginia, I was sent here to represent the 
people of Main Street. For

[[Page 17558]]

those reasons, I rise today to explain why I must oppose the nomination 
of Wall Street investment banker Antonio Weiss to be Under Secretary 
for Domestic Finance at the Department of the Treasury.
  I cannot and will not support his nomination because I do not believe 
he possesses the characteristics and the background we need in an Under 
Secretary to push for strong Wall Street oversight and to protect our 
small businesses and financial institutions on Main Streets all across 
America.
  The position to which Mr. Weiss has been nominated is one that would 
put him at the head of the Treasury's decisionmaking on issues of 
domestic finance, fiscal policy, government liability, and other 
related domestic matters. He would oversee critical issues such as Wall 
Street reform, financing the national debt, housing finance reform, and 
small business credit. I have serious doubts that Mr. Weiss has the 
right experience to take on such a role.
  It is clear that as the global head of investment banking at Lazard, 
Mr. Weiss is very talented and experienced in working in financial 
markets and economic institutions, but as an investment banker on Wall 
Street, he does not have the experience for this particular oversight 
position. He has dealt almost entirely with European investment 
banking, not domestic finance or community banking or regulatory issues 
of any kind, all of which fall under the jurisdiction of this important 
position.
  Besides not having the right background for the job, the fact that 
Mr. Weiss is a top corporate dealmaker with a specialization in 
international financing is in itself troubling to me. He has spent a 
good deal of his professional career working on mergers and 
acquisitions for the world's largest corporations. He has spent time in 
Paris running the firm's European division. There is not a thing wrong 
with that, but this fits the administration's pattern of choosing Wall 
Street insiders for senior policy positions instead of those with 
strong consumer protection or community bank and credit union 
experience, plain-spoken people who have worked on Main Street.
  To make matters worse, the substantial compensation Lazard plans to 
offer Mr. Weiss upon his confirmation is another reason to be very 
skeptical. The financial giant is planning to pay him $20 million if he 
can win confirmation and come into government service. This kind of 
arrangement and human nature suggests he will be especially sympathetic 
to Lazard's lobbying efforts. Public service is a noble cause. A $20 
million golden parachute makes it very hard to gain the public's trust.
  With that being said, I do not believe Mr. Weiss can fulfill the 
duties of Under Secretary of the Treasury Department.
  Since joining the Senate banking committee, I have tried to make our 
banking and financial system work better for small businesses, banks, 
and middle-class West Virginians and Americans. I will continue to do 
so. That is why I cannot support this nomination. Mr. Weiss does not 
have the experience for this particular job.
  It is important to send a message that we will no longer allow Wall 
Street to exclusively make our fiscal policy decisions, especially when 
they affect so many around this country on Main Street. Economic and 
banking policies have too often been made without the input of our 
Nation's midsized banks, community banks, and credit unions. We must 
strive to have a balanced view of engaging voices on all sides of these 
important issues. By confirming Mr. Weiss as the Under Secretary, we 
are putting Wall Street before Main Street. We have already seen from 
the 2008 crisis how that harmed the Nation as a whole. We do not need 
to repeat that picture again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from Virginia is 
recognized.


                       Tribute to Saxby Chambliss

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I wanted to rise very briefly because I 
know Senator Chambliss is about to give his farewell speech. I commend 
my dear good friend the Senator from Georgia for his service. I am 
going to stay through his speech, but I know there will be others who 
will probably rise afterwards to give accolades, and I wanted to be 
first in line to salute him for his service, his friendship to so many 
of us in this body, and my personal good wishes for his future. I know 
there will be others later; I thought for a change I would get a word 
in first.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.


                         Farewell to the Senate

  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, as my service in the Senate comes to an 
end, I rise today to say thank you to some of the wonderful people who 
have been part of a great ride for over 20 years.
  We as Americans are fortunate to live in the greatest country in the 
world; a country where the American dream is still alive and well; a 
country where, in spite of all of our problems, we are the envy of the 
free world; a country where a preacher's kid from rural southern 
Georgia can rise to be elected to the House of Representatives and then 
to the Senate.
  We as Members of the Senate are fortunate to have the opportunity to 
serve. We are blessed to be able to work in such a historic venue as we 
are in this afternoon. As we come into our offices and into this 
building every day, there are some things we take for granted. So to 
the entire Capitol Hill workforce, from those who clean our offices, to 
those who change the lightbulbs, provide our food, maintain our 
subways, keep us safe and secure, and to all of those in between, I say 
thank you. You are very professional in what you do, and you always do 
it with a smile.
  To the floor staff and the cloakroom staff for both the majority and 
the minority, thanks for putting in the long hours, listening to often 
boring speeches, reminding us when we have not voted, scheduling floor 
time, reminding us of the rules, and making sure our mistakes are at a 
minimum.
  I am fortunate to have been surrounded by great staff during all of 
my 20 years in the House and Senate, mostly young people from varied 
backgrounds who are the brightest minds my State and my country have to 
offer. They are committed patriots and loyal to the core. To those 
current and former members of my staff, thank you for your service to 
me and to the State of Georgia.
  I have been served by four chiefs of staff: Rob Leebern, Krister 
Holladay, Charlie Harman, and Camila Knowles. Every office plan that 
each one of them put together starts with providing better constituent 
service than any other Member of the House or the Senate. I am 
extremely proud that our record shows we achieve the goal of doing just 
that. I have even had government agency personnel call my office asking 
for guidance on cases from other offices.
  I have often said that my greatest satisfaction from this job comes 
not from negotiating major pieces of legislation but from being able to 
help Georgians with difficulties they are experiencing and having a 
positive impact on their lives.
  I am particularly blessed to have three members of my staff who have 
been with me for all 20 years. My deputy chief Teresa Ervin, Debbie 
Cannon, and Bill Stembridge have walked every mile with me and have 
been so valuable. Thanks, guys.
  My greatest support comes from my family. My wife Julianne, my 
daughter Lia and her husband Joe, my son Bo and his wife Bess, along 
with our grandchildren--John, Parker, Jay, Kimbrough, Anderson, and 
Ellie--have all been somehow involved on the campaign trial.
  Come the 28th day of this month, Julianne and I will have been 
married for 48 years, having met at the University of Georgia a couple 
of years before that. For tolerating a husband who had a 24/7 job for 
20 years, for being a single mom part of that time, and for 
understanding why I could not get home until Christmas Eve some years, 
I say thank you, sweetheart.
  I am privileged today to represent almost 10 million Georgians who 
are the most wonderful people God ever put on

[[Page 17559]]

this earth. I lost my first primary election and went on to win each of 
my next seven races. I won every one of those seven races because I 
shared the values of my constituents, I outworked each of my opponents, 
and I had better ideas and the best advisers and staff. Thanks, Tom and 
Paige.
  Thanks to Senators Nunn and Miller for their regular advice and 
counsel. Thanks to my three leaders, Senator Lott, Senator Frist, and 
Senator McConnell, each of whom provided me with strong leadership and 
always listened to me even when I had ideas that might have been 
different from their ideas.
  I am often asked what I will miss most about the Senate. The answer 
is very easy. I will miss my friends and the relationships we have 
developed over the years. Senator Isakson and I entered the University 
of Georgia 52 years ago in September and became friends immediately. We 
have been the dearest of friends ever since. He is without question the 
most trusted friend and adviser I have. I will miss our daily 
conversations.
  My three best buddies from my House days, Speaker John Boehner, 
Congressman Tom Latham, and Senator Richard Burr, along with Senator 
Tom Coburn, have been the legislative collaborators, dinner partners, 
golfing buddies, confidants, and numerous other things that should not 
be mentioned on the floor of the Senate.
  Senator Lindsey Graham is like a member of my family. We have 
traveled the world together many times, hearing a lot. I have no plans 
to write a book, but if I did, Lindsey Graham's anecdotes would fill a 
chapter.
  Senator Feinstein has been a great chairman and partner on the 
Intelligence Committee. I will miss her leadership, her wisdom, her 
friendship, and those late-afternoon glasses of California wine.
  My most productive time in the Senate has been spent with my dear 
friend Senator Mark Warner. Our work with the Gang of 6, which included 
Senators Durbin, Conrad, Coburn, Crapo, and then later Senators Johanns 
and Bennet, represents the very best of everything about the Senate. We 
spent, literally, hundreds of hours together debating ideas and trying 
to solve major problems, and we came very close. Senator Warner's 
insight, his wanting to solve problems, and his political inspiration 
are lessons that I will carry with me forever.
  As the Senate now goes forward under new leadership, I have two 
comments. First, the Senate should return to regular order. Senator 
McConnell has indicated that will be the case, and it should be.
  The rule change by the current majority changed the institution of 
the Senate in a negative way. I hope the rule is changed back to 
require 60 votes on all issues, including judges and nominees. Some of 
those most vocal favoring the rules change lost their elections, and 
while the rules change did not cost them their election, it is very 
clear that the American people wanted a change in the leadership that 
changed the rule. Regular order will help in restoring trust and 
confidence to the world's most deliberative body.
  Second, it is imperative that the issue of the debt of this country 
be addressed. Just last week our total debt surpassed $18 trillion. We 
cannot leave the astronomical debt our policies have generated for our 
children and grandchildren to fix. It is not rocket science; it is what 
must be done.
  Cutting spending alone--for example, sequestration--is not the 
solution. Raising taxes is not the solution. As Simpson-Bowles, 
Domenici-Rivlin and the Gang of 6 all agreed, it will take a 
combination of spending reduction, entitlement reform, and tax reform 
to stimulate more revenue. Hard and tough votes will have to be taken, 
but that is why we get elected to the Senate. The world is waiting for 
America to lead on this issue. If we do, the U.S. economy will respond 
in a very robust way. The Gang of 6 laid the foundation for this 
problem to be solved, and it is my hope that we do not leave the 
solution for the next generation.
  I close with what I have enjoyed most about Congress, and that is the 
opportunity that I have had to spend with the men and women in uniform 
and those in the intelligence world, all of whom are willing to put 
their lives in harm's way for the sake of our freedom.
  Whether it was Robins Air Force Base, Kabul, Ramadi, Jalalabad, 
Khowst or Dubai, I always get emotional telling the men and women how 
proud I am of them and how blessed we as Americans are to have them 
protecting us. They are special people who sacrificed much for the sake 
of all 300 million Americans.
  Let us also remember and be thankful for the families of those 
military and civilian personnel who likewise make a commitment to 
America. As we head into another Christmas season, many of those 
families will not have at home their spouse, their parent, their son or 
their daughter.
  May God bless them. May God bless this great institution, and may God 
continue to bless our great country.
  I yield the floor.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from California is 
recognized.


                      Tributes to Saxby Chambliss

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Senator Chambliss, my remarks are personal. We worked 
together for the past 8 years on the Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence. For 4 years we have worked as chair and cochair. We have 
exchanged views, we have negotiated bills, and we have shared 
information. We have been there through very tough times and some very 
pleasant times. It is very hard for me to see you go.
  I have learned to trust you. I respect you. We have worked together. 
The committee put together a Benghazi report. We worked very hard. We 
found areas of agreement.
  Senator Collins of the committee is here, and Senator Warner is here. 
Am I missing anyone else from the committee? There is Senator Burr, who 
will be the new chairman, and Senator Coats, Senator Coburn. We were 
able to come together and put together a report unanimously, and it was 
really because of your leadership.
  As I watched, what became very apparent is that maybe your side isn't 
as fractious as my side is. You were able to say yes, we can do this or 
no, we can't do that, and you reflected your Members. That made it very 
easy for me, and I am very grateful.
  Yesterday we disagreed. You have never taken a cheap shot. We worked 
together at the same time to move our intelligence authorization bill. 
There was one last glitch which you worked out, and that bill passed 
unanimously last night.
  Together we have worked to put together an information-sharing bill 
for what is probably our No. 1 defensive issue, which is cyber and the 
attacks that have taken 97 percent of our businesses into difficulties.
  You have compromised, and I have compromised. Unfortunately, on our 
side, we have some unsolved issues. So, hopefully, I will be able to 
pick up with Senator Burr where we left off, and we will be able to get 
that job done next year.
  What I want you to know--and I said this to you in another way--that 
it was such a wonderful experience for me to work with you. This is the 
hard part. We are only here for an instant in eternity, and the only 
thing that matters is what we do with that instant.
  What I want you to know is you have really done yeoman's work in that 
instant, and I am very grateful to have the pleasure of working with 
you. I have learned from you, and I wish you all good things.
  Thank you very much, Senator Chambliss.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
  Mr. ISAKSON. I rise to pay tribute to my friend, Saxby Chambliss.
  I will admit to you this is a speech I never wanted to make. I never 
wanted to make it because we have had a wonderful relationship in this 
body for the past 10 years. We have done everything together.
  He has had my back, and I have had his back. He is a great friend, 
and I will miss him. But I am not a selfish guy. He married one of the 
finest women I

[[Page 17560]]

have ever known, Julianne Chambliss, who is one of the best friends my 
wife has.
  Although he is leaving us and I will miss the crutch I have used for 
so long, Julianne is getting her Saxby back. For Julianne, her family, 
and those grandkids he loves so much, that is exactly what Saxby wants 
to do.
  Georgia has had some great Senators: Richard Russell, who was really 
the master of the Senate; Zell Miller, a former Governor of Georgia, a 
great friend of mine and a great mentor of our State; and Sam Nunn, one 
of the finest in national defense and foreign policy our State ever 
offered. Saxby will be the fourth on the Mount Rushmore of Georgia 
Senators who have served Georgia with distinction and with class.
  I want to tell Saxby this in person. For 10 years we have done joint 
conferences. We have messed up twice. When I messed up he covered my 
back and when he messed up I covered his.
  In 2008 when he almost lost a race and got into a runoff in December 
in Georgia, I rode a bus for 21 straight days introducing him three 
times a day and eating barbecue every single day for dinner and for 
lunch. That is a price to pay that only friendship will bring out.
  He is a dear friend, a trusted person. I love him very much and I 
love his family very much.
  I could talk all day, but I wanted to open and close by saying, 
Saxby, I love you. The State is going to love having you back. This 
country is going to miss you, but my grandchildren are safer, my State 
is better, and our relationship has never been stronger.
  May God bless you and your family in every endeavor you undertake, 
and may God bless the United States of America.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. MANCHIN. First, I would say I have only been in the Senate for 4 
years. When I came, let's just say it was not what I expected. For 
that, you look for a little bit of respite, if you will.
  I looked at my colleagues and my friends on the Republican side. I 
didn't come to the Senate looking at what side you were on. I looked at 
basically the person I was dealing with.
  There was a person who befriended me almost from my first day, 
knowing that the transition was a challenge. He stepped up to the plate 
with a few of my other friends over there--I see Senator Coburn behind 
him--and basically took me under the wing and said: Listen, we can all 
work together and get along. What we do here is bigger and for the 
greater good than what we do for ourself.
  Saxby not only showed me, but basically I was able to follow and 
watch what he did. This Chamber should be filled right now--it really 
should be from all sides--but the bottom line is the Senator is loved 
by everybody. I never heard an ill word said about Saxby Chambliss, the 
distinction he carries as far as the Senate and as a human being.
  I say to the Senator, your family and your priorities are correct. 
Your moral compass is working and working well. I can only tell you 
thank you. As someone from the other side of the aisle and as a fellow 
colleague and a fellow American, you are an inspiration to us all.
  Saxby, there will not be another Saxby, but I am glad they gave you 
to me for this short period of time of 4 years. Some of you--I look at 
Johnny, and I envy Johnny. For 52 years he has been your close friend.
  There is your partner in crime back there, Senator Burr. We hope he 
doesn't tell it all when he gets up.
  But with that being said, there are so many people who have a 
relationship that is unmatched and that is because of you.
  I say, my dear friend, my hat is off to you. Thank you, and God bless 
you for what you have done for the United States of America, for 
Georgia, but most importantly for all of us. Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from North Carolina is 
recognized.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. President, this moment is bittersweet for me.
  I spent more time with Saxby than I have with my own wife for the 
past 20 years. We have done everything together. Those vacation spots 
he mentioned--Kabul, Baghdad--I was right beside him.
  We traveled to areas of the world that others wouldn't venture to, 
and there was a reason he was there. He was concerned about America's 
future, he was concerned about his children's future, and he was in a 
position to have an impact on it to make it better for them in the 
future. That is why he served. It is obvious to all of our colleagues 
that he is a lot older than I am, but he has worked just as hard as the 
youngest Member of this institution.
  Even though we have seen each other's children grow up, and now we 
have seen them all married off, he deserves the time to go home and 
spend some time with his grandchildren and, more importantly, to get to 
know his wife again.
  I want to say, Senator Feinstein, I like red wine just as much as 
Saxby does. I probably can't be bought as cheaply as he could, but I do 
look forward to continuing to work with you and, more importantly, to 
continue to do the work on the Intelligence Committee that really does 
build on what Saxby started in the year 2000 as we went on the House 
Intelligence Committee together.
  There is only one way to sum up Saxby Chambliss. He is a true 
southern gentleman. He is absolutely a statesman, but what everybody 
who meets Saxby understands is this. He is a great American, he loves 
this country, he loves this institution, and some piece of him will 
remain here when he leaves at the end of this year. He will have an 
impact on what happens even though his presence may not be here.
  We wish him Godspeed in life after.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am a bit out of order here. I was waiting 
for some of my colleagues who have spent a bit more time here than I to 
speak, but I wanted to take this opportunity to add my sincere thanks 
to Saxby Chambliss for the kind of person he is and the kind of 
leadership he has provided and the kind of example he has set during 
his time in Congress and in the Senate.
  I was privileged to be able to come back to the Senate and join the 
group of people who shared the same deep concerns I had shared. The 
reason I did come back was due to the threats to our country from 
abroad and the fiscal plunge into debt that is going to affect our 
country dramatically in the future if we don't deal with it. But having 
the privilege of being with the people who have set such an example has 
been a great privilege for me.
  If I were a producer and director of a movie I was going to have come 
out about the Senate, I would want Saxby to be the leading man. First 
of all, he looks like a Senator, and he has that southern calm presence 
that most of us envy and he just seems to fit the profile. The next 
choice would have to be for the leading lady, and you couldn't find a 
more gracious, beautiful, supportive leading lady than Julianne 
Chambliss. Together, they just make a stunning couple.
  I have had the privilege of traveling with them and seeing them in 
different places and in different situations, and what a tremendous 
gift it is to be with the both of them. So the Senate and many of us 
here will dearly miss Saxby Chambliss. He comes from a line of 
distinguished Senators representing the State of Georgia, and as 
Senator Burr said, he fits right into that long list of people whose 
tenure here has been remembered for decades and will continue to be 
remembered for decades.
  His commitment to our men and women in uniform, his service to the 
agriculture community but particularly, in my experience, his 
leadership of the Intelligence Committee has been leadership this 
country has needed in a time of dire circumstances. His work with 
Chairman Feinstein in dealing with the daily pressures and weight of 
responsibility that falls on the leadership--and all of us who serve on 
the committee but particularly the leadership of the Intelligence 
Committee--

[[Page 17561]]

has probably been as great in the last several years as any time in our 
history. Very difficult decisions have had to be made.
  I know I sometimes stagger out of that committee thinking, this is 
more than I can get my mind around. This is more than I can get my arms 
around in terms of how do we deal with some of these threats and some 
of these challenges that have popped up all over the world in various 
manifestations. Yet the solid leadership on the Republican side with 
Saxby Chambliss has united us in a way that has forged a real bond and 
a desire to work in a nonpartisan basis to live up to our 
responsibility to provide oversight for the intelligence community and 
to be a part of helping make those decisions that are so important and 
so formative in terms of how we deal with these particular issues.
  So I thank Saxby for the person he has been, the person he is, and 
the person he will continue to be, for the example he has set, for his 
friendship, and for his extraordinary leadership. I know the 
refrigerator will be stocked with Coca Cola, there will be Georgia 
peanuts in his pocket, maybe a little bit of bourbon in a drawer 
somewhere, and he will have a tee time at Augusta just about any time 
he wants. I wish him the very best as he and Julianne go forward with 
their life. He has left his mark here and certainly he has left his 
mark on me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, a lot has been said about Saxby already, 
but I have an observation I have noticed over the last 10 years since I 
have been here, and it is about leadership. We see elected leadership 
on both sides, but then we see real leadership. We see the person 
people go to for advice. We see the person people go to for counsel. We 
see the person whom people go to for wisdom and judgment. That is what 
I have noticed the last 10 years.
  More than anybody in this body, whether it is from the other side of 
the aisle or this side of the aisle, the person whose counsel is most 
sought is that of Saxby Chambliss. That is real leadership that is 
earned, and it needs to be recognized and honored for what it is. 
Because what it says is his leadership comes without judgment on the 
person asking the question, without condemnation of a position that may 
be different than his. It is giving of himself for the benefit of the 
rest of us.
  Hear, hear, my friend from Georgia.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, it is an honor for me to stand and pay 
tribute to Saxby Chambliss. I think the first time I got to work around 
Saxby was when I was nominated as the Secretary of Agriculture, and I 
think the first hearing Saxby chaired as chairman of the Senate ag 
committee might have been that hearing.
  I arrived in Washington, and I was scared to death. I had no idea 
what to expect. But I met with Saxby, and I knew immediately that when 
I was in that hearing I was going to be treated with dignity and with 
respect because he wouldn't have it any other way. That is the way he 
did business.
  Fortunately, I was confirmed, and that started our working 
relationship. In those years, I would not try to argue that we agreed 
on every nuance of farm policy. I am positive there were times when 
Saxby was convinced I didn't understand a thing about southern 
agriculture. But he was patient and he was determined to represent all 
of agriculture, whether it was the South, the Midwest or the West. His 
goal was to be a chairman of the ag committee for all of agriculture. 
It was during that time the farm bill was written, and he was a tough 
negotiator. He had a mind in terms of where he was headed and he was 
going to stand up for his people and I came to respect him so much.
  It was in the Senate though where I truly began to understand his 
talent. I can't tell you how many times we have been in a caucus 
meeting and somebody would ask the most intricate, difficult question 
relating to intelligence and national security, and invariably we would 
turn to Saxby. Saxby would stand and, in that quiet but forceful way he 
has, he would walk us through the intricacies of the issues. On 
whatever the topic was, he would explain it in a way that literally 
everybody in the room understood. They got it. Watch out. You had 
better be prepared to be Senators with the information he had given us.
  What has impressed me so much, and I know I speak for my colleagues 
when I say this, is he could do the same thing with the most intricate 
issues relative to farm policy or ag policy or finance or the Federal 
budget. The breadth of his knowledge is absolutely unbelievable.
  I thank you, Saxby, for the many times you probably disagreed with me 
immensely but treated me thoughtfully and respectfully and listened to 
my opinion. I saw you do that with other Members in this body. I thank 
you for your service. As one of the retiring Members, I will look 
forward to the opportunity to spend more time with you. I hope our 
paths cross many times in the future because I know I will be the 
better for it.
  God bless you, my friend, and best wishes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. The junior Senator from Ohio.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Your words.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Look. I am so proud to be here to say a couple of words 
about my friend Saxby. As you have heard from my colleagues, he is 
beloved. By the way, two of those who spoke are Senators who are also 
choosing to leave us. Tom Coburn talked about leadership. I will tell 
you, they are leaving a huge void.
  I got to know Saxby when he came to the House of Representatives. I 
was there in the early 1990s, and we became friends. Although I am from 
Ohio and he is a son of the South, he and Julianne embraced me and 
Jane, and I got to know his son Bo--such a great family.
  But I didn't truly get to know him until I was the U.S. Trade 
Representative and my job was to try to open markets for U.S. 
agricultural products around the world. That required looking at 
something called subsidies--agriculture subsidies. This is a dangerous 
area in terms of politics, and Mike Johanns is very well aware of this 
as an ex-Secretary of Agriculture, having been at my side during some 
of these negotiations.
  My job was to come to the Senate ag committee and talk about what we 
were up to and try to find out how much flexibility there was for us to 
get these markets open that were so important for our farmers and 
ranchers but entailed considerable political risk. I learned a new 
Saxby Chambliss there. That is when I saw the leadership that was 
talked about earlier.
  Saxby was willing to not just be constructive but to take that risk 
and to be totally discreet and confidential in dealing with very 
sensitive issues. I came away with a whole new level of understanding 
about Saxby and therefore a new respect for him, his character, and his 
willingness to do what was right.
  More recently, of course, we have seen his leadership on other 
issues: standing up for our men and women in uniform. My colleagues, to 
me, he has been the guardian at the gate, giving us all comfort as 
ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. We live in a dangerous, 
volatile world, and knowing Saxby was there, clear-eyed, disciplined, 
discreet, and able to tell it like it was and tell it like it is today, 
I think has given not just us but our families and all Americans 
considerable comfort. So I appreciate his service there.
  Finally, I admire his willingness to step up on this issue of our 
national debt. This is again not an easy issue, and he joined with some 
colleagues to promote some proposals. Again, my colleagues who are 
leaving know this, Tom Coburn, in particular; Mike Johanns, whom I will 
always have a great deal of respect for the way he has handled that 
issue as well.
  Despite everything we have heard about him today though, perhaps his 
greatest accomplishment has yet to be mentioned; that is, the fact that 
he

[[Page 17562]]

played golf with the President of the United States and managed to get 
a hole in one. The press report from that day says two things that are 
very interesting. First, it says he hit the hole in one on the south 
course. The son of the South chose to use the south course, of course, 
for his hole in one, but, second, it says ``he was choking up on a 5-
iron.''
  Taking nothing away from his hole in one--and it sounds like it 
wasn't as long a shot as he explained to me it might have been--but 
choking up on a 5-iron makes no sense to me. There is nobody more 
poised, more smooth. I have never seen him choke on anything.
  Saxby, we are sad to see you leave but happy to see you spend more 
time with Julianne, the kids, and the beloved Bulldogs. Godspeed, my 
friend.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I rise to thank my friend Saxby Chambliss. 
Senator Coburn spoke about leadership. We are very much going to miss 
Senator Coburn, Senator Johanns, and Senator Chambliss in this body.
  But what he said is very true; because as someone who has only served 
here for 4 years, one of the people who has been most welcoming to me 
and a mentor and role model and someone from whom I have sought advice 
is Saxby Chambliss.
  As we look at this body and people whom we can emulate as role 
models, Saxby Chambliss is one of those role models. Not only is he 
incredibly knowledgeable on the issues that are so important to this 
Nation--and I can say, having served with him on the Armed Services 
Committee, he is one of the most knowledgeable people in this country, 
not only on what we need to do to keep the country safe because of his 
role on the Intelligence Committee, but also what we need to ensure 
that our men and women in uniform have the very best to keep our 
country safe. Saxby has a deep understanding and very much loves our 
men and women in uniform, and has stood up for them in ensuring that 
they have gotten what they need to keep this country safe.
  From my perspective, he is someone who is going to be so missed in 
this body, because he has understood that you can stand on principle, 
as he has, for the important challenges facing this Nation--whether it 
is keeping us safe, or addressing the national debt that threatens not 
only our security but the prosperity of America; but he has also done 
it in a way that he has been able to build relationships--relationships 
within our own conference in the Republican Caucus, where he is a go-to 
leader, where people like me seek his advice on how to get things 
done--but also, as we can see here, relationships across the aisle.
  As we go into the new Congress, I hope as Saxby goes on to do other 
important things with his lovely family and Julianne and his children 
and grandchildren, that we will follow the example of Saxby Chambliss 
of what it means to work together, of what it means to be respectful of 
each other to get things done for this country, and to address the 
great challenges that Saxby has done so much important work on--
including keeping our Nation safe and making sure that America remains 
strong.
  Saxby, I want to thank you for being so welcoming to me, for being a 
role model, and for being someone who I think is an example of what it 
means to serve this country with distinction.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from North Dakota is 
recognized.


                     Tribute to Departing Senators

             Saxby chambliss, Tom Coburn, and Mike Johanns

  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, in the new Congress we will welcome 12 new 
Republican Senators, and that is wonderful. They are great people. They 
are excited. They are enthusiastic. I think they are going to do 
wonderful things. So there are 12 new Republican Members coming into 
the new Senate, and I am looking and we are going to lose 3 of our 
Republican colleagues. I am thinking, maybe that is about the right 
ratio; it is about 4 to 1.
  But these are three individuals who are unbelievable in what they 
have been able to do in the relationships they built, the friendships, 
and the work they have done on behalf of the American people. So I am 
looking at that statistic and I am thinking: Wow, these are three great 
people who have done the work of many, and I think they have laid the 
foundation in many ways for us to get to a majority: Senator Johanns, 
Senator Coburn, and Senator Chambliss. I think they have done a lot of 
that work required for us to get to majority.
  We have heard about the great Senator from Georgia. But I think the 
things I am going to talk about for a minute in regard to Saxby 
Chambliss apply to the two individuals sitting here with him. They are 
cut from the same cloth: Senator Coburn, Senator Johanns, true public 
servants. People who ran for the right reason; people who serve for the 
right reason. I think we could ask anybody in this body on either side 
of the aisle, and they would tell us that these three individuals 
served for the right reasons, and served to the very best of their 
ability the American people--not just the people of their State, but 
the American people. They will be remembered long after they are gone. 
They will be remembered because of the great, wonderful people they 
are, for the relationships they have built, and for that service. So I 
echo Senator Ayotte's comments.
  Senator Coburn touched on it, too. One of the first people I looked 
to as a mentor when I came here 4 years ago was Saxby Chambliss. Now, 
that doesn't seem intuitively like something I would do--I am from 
North Dakota, he is from Georgia. Mike Johanns has been a mentor of 
mine since Governor days, so for more than a decade. But one of the 
first people I looked to as a mentor was Saxby Chambliss, and I don't 
even know why. It was one of those things that immediately you like the 
guy. But as you listened to him a little bit, you respected the guy. 
You thought: This guy has something to say. He knows what he is doing. 
But then, it is that relationship thing--that thing where he goes out 
of his way to work with you, to help you, to understand what you are 
trying to do in a friendly way, with great humor, and he does it 
naturally. It is just who he is. It is automatic. I think Senator 
Isakson really put his finger on it: It is just the way he is. You are 
naturally drawn to him.
  I think we could talk to any of our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle and they would tell you the same thing: integrity, honesty, 
intelligence; somebody you can work with, somebody who cares, somebody 
who always has the best interests of the American people at heart.
  I had the opportunity to work with him on the farm bill, and I was 
counting on Senator Coburn to kind of jump in there and do it with him, 
but that didn't happen right away. I am kidding a little bit. But we 
couldn't have had a farm bill without Senator Chambliss.
  When I think how difficult it is to move legislation like that, 
particularly over the course of the past year, and realize that a farm 
bill really isn't so much Republican/Democratic--it really isn't. If 
you look at how a farm bill works, that is not the makeup. It comes 
down to people who know and understand agriculture, who understand the 
importance of a good farm bill for our farmers and ranchers, but 
understand also that our farmers and ranchers across the country create 
the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world. It is not 
perfect, but every American benefits every day from the highest 
quality, lowest cost food supply in the world.
  So when I think of my State of North Dakota, or Senator Coburn's 
great State of Oklahoma, or Senator Johanns' State of Nebraska--we all 
produce all of these different ag products. We raise all these crops, 
we raise all these animals. And there are so many people out there, so 
many farmers and ranchers--they don't know Saxby Chambliss. But I will 
tell you what: They owe him a great big thank you. They really do, 
because without him we wouldn't have a good farm plan for this country.
  The reality is it is not just the farmers and ranchers. It is true 
for so many

[[Page 17563]]

people across this country: They may not know Saxby Chambliss, but they 
owe him a lot. He is somebody who epitomizes the very best of this 
institution.
  I know his wife Julianne is here. I have to admit, when I first met 
her I thought it was his daughter because she is so young and 
beautiful. I am teasing him a little. But she is fantastic. And the 
same thing--she was immediately a friend and a mentor to my wife Mikey.
  When we talk about Saxby Chambliss, Tom Coburn, Mike Johanns, it 
doesn't get any better than that. We will miss them a lot.
  I wish all three of them Godspeed, and may God bless you in your next 
career.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.


                    Second Anniversary of Sandy Hook

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I add my congratulations to Senator 
Chambliss. It is strange, coming here in the last 2 years and getting 
to serve only 2 years with giants in the Senate like Saxby, like Tom 
Harkin, and like Senator Rockefeller, whose legacies will live on.
  Knowing what a good soul Senator Chambliss is, I bet he would enjoy 
the Newtown Labor Day parade. I have a picture of it here.
  We had the 53rd annual Newtown Labor Day parade this last year. This 
is the biggest event that happens in Connecticut on Labor Day. It is a 
celebration of the town. There are 120 different groups that make up 
the parade. There is the Newtown High School marching band. This year 
Grand Marshall Sydney Eddison was proudly marching at the front. The 
Litchfield Hills Pipe Band and newer groups such as the Marching Cobras 
of New York were there this year. It is a must-stop if you are a 
Senator, Governor, or Congressperson. We all march together at the 
front of the parade regardless of party. It is a really fantastic and 
wonderful place.
  This year there were marchers from the Avielle Foundation; a truck 
decorated in pink promoting a culture of kindness. Sandy Hook 
Elementary School had a float called ``The Magic School Bus to Sandy 
Hook School.'' It had a positive message of ``Think You Can, Work Hard, 
Get Smart, Be Kind,'' and the judges selected Sandy Hook School's float 
as the winner in the best school category.
  It is a reminder that Sandy Hook is a positive place; Newtown is a 
positive place--a place that is rebounding as we come upon the 2-year 
anniversary, the 2-year memorial of the tragic shooting in that town 
that took the lives of 20 6- and 7-year-olds, and 6 of their teachers 
who were sworn to protect them.
  Senator Blumenthal and I have come to the floor today to mark that 2-
year anniversary and to talk for a brief few moments about what has 
happened over the last 2 years--what has happened that has been 
positive, and the work that is left to still be done.
  There are a lot of positive things that have happened. It is 
impossible to try to find any good that comes out of this, but the 
foundational work that has happened in the memory of these children is 
remarkable.
  The Jessica Rekos Foundation was formed in an effort to pay homage to 
Jessica's love of horses and her love of whales. They opened up a 
summer camp where kids ages 6 to 10, the age that Jessica was when she 
passed, could be able to enjoy horses, learn how to ride and take care 
of them. They raise money to sponsor the Orca Fellowship, which is 
dedicated to conservation initiatives for the orca whale.
  I mentioned the Avielle Foundation. Avielle's brilliant parents 
started a foundation seeking to do new research into brain activity. 
They have a new PSA video to highlight the need to understand the 
aspects of the brain that can lead to aggression and violence.
  Ana Grace Marquez-Greene. Her family is a musical family. They 
started a foundation which tries to identify ways to build stronger 
communities. Her father is a wonderful jazz musician, and he recently 
released an album called ``Beautiful Life.'' The proceeds all go to 
this effort.
  Sandy Hook Promise, a group of families, is asking schools and 
communities to take a simple first step to ending violence. That first 
step is to talk to children and teens about how to be a good 
bystander--to look out for those first signs of trouble, and to report 
anything that may seem out of the ordinary.
  We frankly have seen how that small act can make a big difference. 
Just last week a young man was arrested in Utah after he admitted he 
had brought a gun to school with the intent to shoot a girl he had a 
falling out with and then his plans were to open fire on the rest of 
his classmates, but a student heard about it and tipped off authorities 
so he could be stopped before he carried out his plan. That is what 
Sandy Hook Promise is trying to do in the wake of this tragedy, to 
spread the word that those small acts can make a difference.
  I will talk for a few minutes about what hasn't been done when it 
comes to policy changes, but there is a lot that has happened when it 
comes to policy as well. In Connecticut we passed the strongest antigun 
violence measure in the country. It cracks down on illegal guns and 
invests more resources into identifying trouble spots before they 
happen. Washington State just passed a new referendum with 60 percent 
of the vote that extends their background check systems to private 
sales and to transfers. In Colorado they passed a strong new law as 
well. On the private sector side retailers are stepping up. Big 
retailers from Starbucks to Chipotle, to Target have taken proactive 
steps, separate and aside from anything government has done, to keep 
firearms out of their stores. So there are a lot of positives that have 
happened in the private sector and in the public sector, and hopefully 
we can build on that work. Hopefully Congress can recognize that our 
silence, our inability to pass anything in the 2-year period of time 
since Sandy Hook passed, effectively makes us complicit in the 
continuing assault on students all across this country.
  Here is the map. In the 2 years since Newtown, there have been 95 
different school shootings all across the country. Ninety-five 
different school shootings have occurred. During the last 3 months 
alone, there were 17 school shootings, including a single week where 
there was one every day, five events over the course of 5 days. This is 
an absolute epidemic that is happening all across this country since 
Sandy Hook. Why I say we are complicit is that when there is no 
response from Congress, when there is not a single legislative act 
passed to try to do something about this, it sends a message of quiet 
endorsement of what is happening. I know that is not our intent. I know 
that is not in the hearts or minds of any of our Members, but people 
notice when every week there is a new story of a school shooting all 
across the country and Congress does absolutely nothing about it while 
the private sector and State legislatures step up to do something about 
it. So this is a day when we remember what happened 2 years ago, but it 
is also a day in which we should feel ashamed that we haven't done a 
single thing to try to stem this tide.
  I get it that we are not going to get a background check bill passed 
in the next 2 years, but why not work on mental health funding? Why not 
have everybody in this Chamber spend 5 minutes of your time reading the 
report that was just released by the Connecticut child advocate 
detailing the history of Adam Lanza's intersection with the mental 
health system during his early years and adolescence and how it failed 
step after step, year after year, month after month--a lack of 
followup, a lack of coordination, a lack of diagnosis. We have a mental 
health system in this country that is broken and can be fixed--yes, 
with some more resources but just with better coordination. That is 
something we can work on together over the next 2 years. So we can say 
when this chart gets peppered with another 50 dots by this time next 
year that we didn't just stand silent.
  Nobody is more articulate than Senator Blumenthal in talking about 
that day, and I don't want to relive it on

[[Page 17564]]

this floor, except to share the most powerful testimony I have heard 
about what happened that day.
  This is a community that is recovering, but it is still a community 
in crisis. We don't lose 20 little boys and girls and just come back to 
life in 2 years. It is a resilient community, but it is a community 
that still hurts, and it hurts in part because they don't see us doing 
anything about it.
  So before I yield the floor to Senator Blumenthal to say a few words, 
I wish to close with somebody else's words. I have shared these words 
on the floor before, but they are just as powerful now as they were the 
last time I read them.
  This is Neil Heslin testifying before Congress in February of 2013. 
He is still Jesse Lewis's father, one of the little boys who was killed 
that day. So as we think about what happened 2 years ago in Sandy Hook 
and we think about the charge we have before us and we think about the 
fact that there are those of us such as myself and Senator Blumenthal 
and others who will not rest until we honor their memories by our 
actions, let me give you these words:

       On December 14, Jesse got up and got ready for school. He 
     was always excited to go to school. I remember on that day we 
     stopped by Misty Vale Deli. It's funny the things you 
     remember.
       I remember Jesse got the sausage, egg and cheese he always 
     gets, with some hot chocolate. And I remember the hug he gave 
     me when I dropped him off. He just held me, and he rubbed my 
     back. I can still feel that hug.
       And Jesse said, ``It's going to be alright. Everything's 
     going to be okay, Dad.'' Looking back it makes me wonder. 
     What did he know? Did he have some idea about what was going 
     to happen? But at the time I didn't think much of it. I just 
     thought he was being sweet.
       Jesse had this idea that you never leave people hurt. If 
     you can help somebody, you do it. If you can make somebody 
     feel better, you do it. If you can leave somebody a little 
     better off, you do it.
       They tell me that's how he died. I guess we still don't 
     know exactly what happened at that school. Maybe we'll never 
     know. But what people tell me is that Jesse did something 
     different.
       When he heard the shooting, he didn't run and hide. He 
     started yelling. People disagree on the last thing he said. 
     One person who was there said he yelled ``run.'' Another 
     person said he told everybody to ``run now.'' Ten kids from 
     my son's class made it to safety. I hope to God something 
     Jesse did helped them survive that day.
       What I know is that Jesse wasn't shot in the back. He took 
     two bullets. The first one grazed the side of his head. . . . 
     The other hit him in the forehead. Both bullets were fired 
     from the front. That means that the last thing my son did was 
     look Adam Lanza straight in the face and scream to his 
     classmates to run. The last thing he saw was that coward's 
     eyes.
       Before he died, Jesse and I used to talk about maybe coming 
     to Washington someday. He wanted to go up to the Washington 
     monument. When we talked about it last year Jesse asked if we 
     could come and meet the President.
       . . . Jesse believed in you.

  This is Neil Heslin, his father talking.

       . . . Jesse believed in you. He learned about you in school 
     and he believed in you. I want to believe in you, too. I know 
     you can't give me Jesse back. Believe me, if I thought you 
     could, I'd be asking you for that.
       But I want to believe that you will think about what I told 
     you here today. I want to believe you'll think about it and 
     then you'll do something about it, whatever you can do to 
     make sure no other father has to see what I've seen.

  That is a pretty powerful message, a message that on the 2-year 
anniversary mark of that horrible tragedy we would be wise to listen 
to.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Connecticut is 
recognized.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, on December 14, 2012, we saw evil, but 
we also saw good. We saw tragedy, but we also saw actions that should 
continue to inspire us.
  The evil was in a deranged young man who committed unspeakable and 
unimaginable horrific acts, but the good was exemplified by the police, 
the emergency responders, and the teachers who not only risked their 
lives but saved other ones. The good was something that came forward in 
the days and months and in the past 2 years.
  Often I visit the playgrounds that have been built throughout the 
State of Connecticut in memory of those children, in memory of 
Charlotte Bacon in West Haven and Ana Grace Marquez-Greene in Hartford, 
Jessica Rekos in Fairfield, and Dylon Hockley in Westfork, and Victoria 
Soto in Stratford. I visit them to watch children playing, children 
often the same age as the wonderful, beautiful children who perished on 
that day, and parents about the same age as the teachers who lost their 
lives, sixth-grade educators.
  On that day parents in Newtown took their children to school, kissed 
them goodbye and went about their days, went to work to plan play dates 
and snack breaks and holiday parties, and just hours into that morning 
many parents were standing at the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Station 
where I also went that day. What I saw was through the eyes of a 
parent, not just a public official, the cries of grief, the faces, and 
voices filled with tears and longing. Those images I will never forget, 
and they have redoubled my own determination to try to make America 
safer and better, to keep faith with those 26 wonderful people whose 
lives were lost that day, and more than 30,000 people who perished in 
the United States as a result of violence simply because many of them 
were in the wrong place at the wrong time--on the street or in 
neighborhoods or in their own home.
  The good that is done every day by our police and firemen and 
emergency responders to try to stem and stop this epidemic of violence 
cannot overcome the flood of guns in our Nation and cannot compensate 
for the lack of effective measures to make America safer and better by 
making our laws against gun violence more effective.
  I will never forget that day or any of the victims or their families, 
and I hope America never forgets them as well. We are memorializing now 
their wonderful lives by acts of kindness, but the best and truest way 
to memorialize them in history is to approve effective, commonsense, 
sensible measures against gun violence.
  In the aftermath of those horrific events of December 14, all of 
Connecticut, certainly in Newtown, and our State came together to lift 
those who were so devastatingly impacted, and those families have shown 
incredible strength. They sat in the gallery, they came to visit us and 
our colleagues urging action. Congress's failure to act is contemptible 
and unconscionable and a betrayal of those individuals. The action that 
is ultimately truest and best as a memorial to them will be for this 
Congress to act.
  In Newtown and around the Nation, every community in some way was 
affected in those days and in some way came together with Newtown. So 
my hope is still that that spirit will be an inspiration to action, 
that it will be an impetus to the Congress for effective, commonsense 
measures that will protect countless others who are in danger and who 
will die if Congress does not act.
  More than 60,000 firearm deaths have occurred since December 14, 
2012. There are 32,000 firearm deaths per year. Those families have 
demonstrated unrelenting resolve, and so should we, and we will. It 
took more than 10 years for the Brady law to be approved, even after a 
President of the United States was almost assassinated and his Press 
Secretary, Jim Brady, was severely injured and paralyzed.
  I hope it will not take 10 years for action to be taken by Congress, 
but we need the persistence and perseverance that will carry us through 
whatever it takes to achieve lasting reform.
  I have been proud to serve as a member of the Judiciary Committee and 
to have worked hard for this measure, helping to lead the effort to 
approve the ban on high-capacity magazines as well as assault weapons 
and background checks. But a mental health initiative and school safety 
initiative have also been part of what we need do. I will continue my 
work on those efforts--mental health and school safety bills I have 
introduced, including the Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor 
Protection Act.
  Lori Jackson was estranged from her husband. She obtained a court 
order against him because of the real evidence of danger from him. 
Unfortunately, that court order failed to save

[[Page 17565]]

her life because it was only temporary, and it failed to take away the 
guns her husband had. The Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor 
Protection Act will fill that gap in our laws now.
  Women are five times as likely to die as a result of domestic 
violence when there is a gun in the home. One in five women are victims 
of domestic violence at some point in their lives. That is the reason 
we need to continue this fight on many fronts. Since that day or about 
then, on December 14, I have worn a bracelet and I still do. The 
writing has faded and is no longer visible, but the one thing it said 
was, ``Love wins.'' I truly believe that love won in Newtown, that love 
won when Connecticut's legislature passed a strong and effective 
measure. It was the next step. It is not the end of the work, but the 
next step. I believe that love won through the grace and courage and 
strength of the families of those children and the loved ones of the 
teachers who lost their lives.
  I believe love wins every day in our classrooms around the Nation 
when teachers work hard--and they work hard--and resolve to keep their 
children safe. Love wins every day when someone stands up and speaks 
out against gun violence. Love will win, eventually. Honor will win. We 
will honor those children, and we will celebrate the love they felt so 
deeply and unconditionally--as only children can--unqualifiedly for 
their parents and their community. I believe that love will win 
eventually as long as we keep working.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

                          ____________________