[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2479-2497]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 REPEALING SECTION 403 OF THE BIPARTISAN BUDGET ACT OF 2013--Motion to 
                                Proceed

  Mr. REID. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 298, S. 1963.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A motion to proceed to Calendar No. 298, S. 1963, a bill to 
     repeal section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum required 
under rule XXII be waived for the cloture motions just filed and that 
Wednesday, February 5, 2014, count as an intervening day.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I want to take a moment to explain where we are. Over the 
last few months, we have been struggling to find a way to help some 
desperate people in our country. It is hard to find a way to convince 
our Republican colleagues that these people are in a desperate 
situation and to join with us in extending unemployment insurance 
benefits for 1.6 million of our fellow citizens.
  Last month, we tried to pass a bipartisan bill that would simply 
extend those benefits on a short-term basis for 3 months. All but a few 
Republicans voted against proceeding to that measure. Republicans 
complained that we had not paid for the extension, so we offered them a 
paid-for 11-month extension. Every Republican voted against the cloture 
motion, every Republican, and all but one Republican voted against 
cloture on the bipartisan 3-month extension. So today we are trying yet 
again, offering an amendment that extends unemployment benefits for 3 
months and pays for that extension, not a disputed, controversial 
extension and certainly not a controversial pay-for. Our alternative 
also includes something that Senator Coburn has been talking about for 
several months, an amendment to prevent millionaires from getting 
unemployment benefits, because it has happened. A person won a lottery 
and still got unemployment benefits.
  Thursday, we are going to vote on cloture on that amendment, one that 
is paid for and would take care of this issue for lots of people. After 
that have we will vote on cloture on the bill, as amended. In the 
meantime, I am pleased to continue discussions with Senators about 
setting up votes on the relevant amendments.
  The Republican leader's proposal is an absolute absurdity. I don't 
know why they just don't come out and say we are not going to do this, 
we are not going to extend unemployment benefits. But they have 
alternating amendments, and they want amendments related to--George 
Mitchell, who was the Democratic leader for a period of time that I 
served here, a wonderful human being, his statement was don't depend on 
the Republicans; they will break your heart every time, and that is 
what they are doing. They are breaking our hearts, and 1.6 million 
people, their hearts are broken.
  The main proponent of this bill has been Jack Reed of Rhode Island. 
Jack Reed and I have a contest--I wish we didn't--and that is which 
State, Rhode Island or Nevada, has the highest unemployment number.
  We care about this greatly, but others care about this. I am sure 
there are some Republicans who care about it, but why are they hung up 
on this foolishness that they can only do it if one time they have 
alternating amendments? They wouldn't take 20 amendments.
  There are a handful of Republicans who tried very hard and worked in 
good faith with Senator Reed of Rhode Island. But the problem is they 
have no control over the tea-party-driven Republicans who make up most 
of this Republican caucus.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. We are at a critical moment. It has been 38 days since the 
emergency unemployment compensation expired, forcing now not 1.6 
million but 1.7 million Americans off an economic cliff and also 
draining $2.2 billion from State economies, and this is according to 
estimates based on data from the Department of Labor and the Ways and 
Means Committee Democrats. This has had a huge impact on families and a 
huge impact on the economy throughout this country.
  Congress should be doing everything to focus on creating jobs and 
improving our economy. This week we have an opportunity to do that. 
That is why we should vote to renew unemployment insurance and help put 
more Americans back to work.
  Restoring these benefits is an imperative. We must do it. We have to 
act with a sense of urgency. People are out there every day looking for 
employment. They are doing everything they can to support their 
families and themselves. While this modest level of support helps them 
stay afloat, what they really want is a job. So our constituents, who 
are trying so hard and doing what they need to do in order to provide 
for themselves and their families, are looking to Congress to uphold 
its end of the bargain.
  Many of our constituents are running out of options. The rent is 
coming due. The telephone bill is coming due, and without a phone they 
can't actively compete for work. There is no way employers can get hold 
of them.
  College tuition is coming due for middle-aged people who are out 
looking for jobs, for their children, and some people who are paying 
their way

[[Page 2480]]

through college. They are being squeezed from all sides, and the 
expiration of these benefits is hurting not only them but it is hurting 
our economy overall.
  Time is of the essence. It has been 7 weeks since Senator Heller and 
I introduced a bipartisan short-term plan that was designed to provide 
immediate relief. We tried different permutations of extending these 
benefits, provisions the other side said they wanted, but to this point 
without success.
  I must say that I have found not only Senator Heller but many of my 
colleagues on the other side both thoughtful and willing to 
contribute--Senator Collins, Senator Coats, Senator Portman, and so 
many others, who are sincere in trying to get this done. But what we 
have to do is get over this 60-vote threshold, at least to provide this 
immediate relief of 3 months to our constituents.
  Again, the face of those unemployed in this downturn is a bit 
different than in the past. We are hearing and seeing more and more 
middle-aged workers who have worked all their lives and for the first 
time are confronted with unemployment. They sent out hundreds of 
resumes. They sought job interviews, many times unsuccessfully. They 
are squeezed because they are trying to support parents at the same 
time they are trying to support children who are in college or young 
adults who are at home.
  This is a tremendous toll on people who have worked hard all of their 
lives. They are simply asking us to step up, as we have done 
consistently in the past, and give them some modest support while they 
search for work.
  We are 1 month into 2014 and still debating a 3-month fix. At some 
point, we will reach the point where the retroactive benefits will be 
greater than the benefits going forward for the 3-month fix. That is 
not a place we want to be, not for people who have worked hard. The 
only way to qualify for unemployment insurance is to be working and 
then, through no fault of your own, to be dismissed from your work--and 
you still have to look for work. That is the whole program. So it is 
not right.
  I think we have to move forward, and we have done this on a 
bipartisan basis three times under President Ronald Reagan, five times 
under George W. Bush, with overwhelming majorities on a bipartisan 
basis, no question. In fact, most times they were completely unpaid 
for. It was emergency spending, not only because people needed the 
emergency aid, but it is a great form of economic support to our 
economy.
  The CBO estimates that if we fail to extend for the full year these 
benefits, we will lose 200,000 jobs over 2014, at a time when our first 
priority should be to put more jobs in the marketplace.
  We have a plan today that is short term, 3 months, retroactive to 
December 28. It is fully paid for by extending pension smoothing for 4 
more years.
  In addition to paying for these benefits, it will reduce the deficit 
by $1.2 billion over 10 years, so we have a mechanism that not only 
helps people but also goes to the issue of the deficit, which is 
another pressing concern, particularly to my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle.
  This offset has been used before. It passed 79 to 19 as part of the 
2012 MAP-21 transportation bill. This is a noncontroversial pay-for. It 
has been proposed by Members on both sides of the aisle with various 
proposals requiring pay-fors.
  We have an urgent need, a very short-term focus, and a 
noncontroversial pay-for, and I will urge my colleagues, let's support 
this, let's move this. If there is work to be done on the architecture 
of unemployment insurance, if there are other collateral issues or 
issues that could be thrown into the mix, let's get this done and then 
let's focus on those issues.
  This amendment also incorporates a measure that Senator Coburn has 
proposed that would bar millionaires, individuals making over $1 
million, from qualifying for unemployment insurance. This measure has 
been unanimously supported 100 to 0 in this Chamber, so we thought we 
would go ahead and put that in as an additional measure that would be 
embraced by everyone in the Chamber.
  This is an issue that has huge support among the American public. 
There is a FOX News poll that says over two-thirds of Americans support 
and want Congress to act now to extend unemployment insurance.
  Let me again thank my colleagues on the other side who have worked 
very sincerely and very diligently to come up with a solution. I say to 
them: Thank you. I appreciate it.
  My concern is helping--as their concern is--those constituents who 
are getting increasingly desperate. We share this. Now what we have to 
do is find a pathway forward.
  I hope, because of the short-term nature of this bill, because of the 
noncontroversial pay-for, that we can get this done, and then I think 
we can embark on a much more expansive review on a much more expansive 
set of issues with respect to UI and other issues that have come before 
the Chamber. It is time to vote--vote aye--to get this measure passed.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


                          2012 Benghazi Attack

  Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
the attack on our consulate on September 11, 2012. I am here to talk 
about the fact that four brave Americans were murdered that day by an 
act of terrorism. One of those murdered was our Ambassador to Libya 
when those four Americans were killed at Benghazi at our consulate.
  I really want to talk about what I believe is a pattern of 
misinformation, misimpressions, and, frankly, misleading the American 
people about what happened there and, during an election season, what 
was represented about the attack on our consulate on September 11. Let 
me walk through some of the situation and the tangled web that was 
woven here.
  First of all, right after this attack occurred--we know that on 
September 16 Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on behalf of the 
administration on every major Sunday television show, and during that 
time people rightly wanted to know what happened. This was a big deal. 
An ambassador had been murdered, along with three other Americans in 
Libya, where we had gone in to remove, working with our NATO partners, 
Qadhafi and really had established alliances with Libya. So here we 
have a murdered Ambassador on September 11, and that day Ambassador 
Rice, during the context of a Presidential election, went on every 
Sunday television show, and when she was asked about what happened on 
that day, she blamed it on the spontaneous reaction to a hateful video.
  Recently, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence did some very 
good bipartisan work looking at what happened with regard to the attack 
at the consulate. That report contains something very telling. That 
report found that ``contrary to many press reports at the time, 
eyewitness statements by U.S. personnel indicate there were no protests 
at the start of the attacks.'' In fact, the then-Deputy Director of the 
CIA received an email sent from the CIA's Chief of Station in Tripoli 
to him on September 15--4 days after the attacks occurred--and in that 
email the Deputy Director of the CIA, Mike Morell, was told the attacks 
were ``not an escalation of protests.'' Not an escalation of protests.
  Why is that important? It is important for many reasons because what 
ends up happening during this period is that Ambassador Rice is going 
on the Sunday shows to talk about this. She is designated to do this on 
behalf of the administration. We have always wondered why. Why did she 
go on, as opposed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or perhaps 
then-Secretary Panetta, the Secretary of Defense? But she is sent that 
day onto the Sunday shows, and on those shows she said this was a 
direct result of a heinous video--protests that came as a result of 
this video.
  Yet the day before, the then-Deputy Director of the CIA had already 
gotten an email from the people on the ground--eyewitness statements. 
There were survivors, people who survived

[[Page 2481]]

this attack and who were interviewed to find out what happened. As you 
would in any situation where you have had a terrorist attack or a 
murder case, you are going to talk to the eyewitnesses on the ground. 
So there were eyewitnesses, and they were spoken to. As a result of 
those eyewitness interviews, the day before she goes on those Sunday 
shows, the Deputy Director of the CIA is told that there was not an 
escalation of protests, that what has been reported is not the case. 
Yet she went on the show and said that anyway.
  What is even more troubling is that this information is communicated 
to the Deputy Director of the CIA, and somehow there are talking points 
prepared that don't reflect this information. Moreover, somehow this 
information that was given to the Deputy Director of the CIA was not 
given to the President--or, I don't know, maybe they didn't like the 
story they received because during that period of time, if we look at 
this, on September 11 the President gave many media interviews during 
this period. It was during a Presidential election.
  On September 18, which is 7 days after the attacks on the consulate, 
2 days after Susan Rice went on the Sunday shows, the President is on 
the Dave Letterman show. We have all watched the comedy show, the Dave 
Letterman show, and Dave Letterman asks the President about the attacks 
in Benghazi. On that show he talks about the video, this heinous video 
being a cause of what happened and the attack at the consulate. Yet, on 
September 15, the then-Deputy Director of the CIA already had some 
information that said this is not an escalation of protests. There were 
interviews done of the survivors on the ground. Yet on the Dave 
Letterman show a week later--in fact, 3 days after this information is 
received by the Deputy Director of the CIA--we have the President 
talking about the video.
  But it gets worse. Nine days later--9 days after the attack, so on 
September 20--the President gives another interview at the Univision 
Town Hall. This is 5 days after the Deputy Director of the CIA is given 
this information, apparently coming from the survivors. And what does 
the President say?

       What we do know is that the natural protests that arose 
     because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse 
     by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. 
     interests.

  That is what he says when he is asked about the attacks on our 
consulate.
  So here we are 9 days after the attack, 5 days after this information 
is given to Mike Morell, the then-Deputy Director of the CIA, and yet 
we have another interview on ``The View,'' another popular show, 13 
days--almost 2 weeks after the attack on the consulate, and again the 
President of United States talks about this being about the video and a 
reaction to the video.
  So here we have the work that was done on this--clear misinformation 
about what happened that day and a very troubling pattern in the 
context of an election, where on those Sunday shows Ambassador Rice 
made sure to tell everyone Al Qaeda has been decimated because that was 
the narrative during this time period, that Al Qaeda has been 
decimated. So if this was a terrorist attack, that would be problematic 
to that narrative.
  In fact, we had testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee 
from then-Defense Secretary Panetta. When he testified before the Armed 
Services Committee, he said clearly:

       There was no question in my mind it was a terrorist attack.

  In fact, he said:

       When I appeared before the committee 3 days afterwards, I 
     said it was a terrorist attack.

  Secretary Panetta made clear he knew from the beginning this was a 
terrorist attack. Yet the President, on September 12, even though the 
day of it he said, ``We won't tolerate any act of terror''--he is asked 
directly by the interviewer, Mr. Kroft from ``60 Minutes,'' ``Mr. 
President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of 
the word terrorism in connection with the Libya attack. Do you believe 
this was a terrorism attack?'' The President said, ``Well, it's too 
early to tell exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but 
obviously it was an attack on Americans.'' The President refused then 
to call it what it was, what his own Secretary of Defense knew--that it 
was a terrorist attack--because, of course, we know the narrative at 
the time was that Al Qaeda had been decimated, and if it was a 
terrorist attack, it didn't quite fit with that narrative.
  In fact, recently the President gave an interview on FOX News with 
Bill O'Reilly--on February 2--and this is what he said when he was 
asked about the attack on the consulate:

       We revealed to the American people exactly what we 
     understood at the time. The notion that we would hide the 
     ball for political purposes when a week later we all said in 
     fact there was a terrorist attack taking place the day after 
     I said it was an act of terror, that wouldn't be a very good 
     coverup.

  I guess the President, when he told Mr. O'Reilly that, forgot about 
the interview he had given on ``The View,'' which was almost 2 weeks 
after this event--13 days after it.
  Almost 2 weeks later he was asked by Ms. Behar:

       I heard Hillary Clinton say it was an act of terrorism. Is 
     it? What do you say?

  Well, no act of terrorism then. He doesn't acknowledge it. He said:

       We're still doing an investigation. There's no doubt that 
     [with] the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing 
     assault, that it wasn't just a mob action.

  This is in the context, of course, where his Secretary of Defense 
said he knew right away it was an act of terrorism. In fact, he came to 
the Armed Services Committee 3 days after and said it was an act of 
terrorism. Yet, again, within a week he isn't saying it was an act of 
terrorism when he is directly asked if it was an act of terrorism.
  In this recent interview with Mr. O'Reilly the President talked about 
the security at the consulate. In fact, there was a strong report 
recently done by the Senate Intelligence Committee on a bipartisan 
basis. In fact, one of the issues they raised deep concerns about is 
that the State Department should have increased its security posture 
more significantly in Benghazi based upon a deteriorating security 
situation on the ground and that the threat reporting on the prior 
attacks against westerners in Benghazi--and there were many cables 
leading up to this too that had been made public--warranted there was 
sufficient warning that security should have been increased at the 
consulate.
  The President acknowledged that in his recent interview with Mr. 
O'Reilly, where he said:

       In the aftermath what became clear was that the security 
     was lax, that not all the precautions that needed to be taken 
     were taken.

  That is certainly confirmed by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence 
Committee. So if that is the case, why is it that Ambassador Susan Rice 
was on the Sunday shows on September 16--she is sent on the shows to 
talk about what happened that day, and she responds in this fashion to 
this question directly and specifically asked by Chris Wallace in that 
interview:
  He says:

       Terror cells in Benghazi had carried out five attacks since 
     April, including . . . a bombing at the same consulate in 
     June. Should U.S. security have been tighter at that 
     consulate given the history of terror activity in Benghazi?

  What is her response? Well, we obviously did have a strong security 
presence.
  She was on several shows--ABC with Jake Tapper; she was on ``Face the 
Nation'' with Bob Schieffer. During the course of those interviews, she 
was asked about the security at the consulate, and she described the 
security at the consulate that day as significant and substantial. What 
was the basis for that? Did anyone give her information that ``security 
was significant, substantial and strong'' that day? Because there was 
absolutely no evidence of that. In fact, everything in this 
investigation has shown that security was absolutely lax at that 
consulate, unacceptably so given the prior history of intelligence at 
the consulate, given the

[[Page 2482]]

prior attacks that had been made on the British and on the Red Cross, 
and unfortunately this really was a death trap.
  So in the context of an election, why is she--and the President as 
well--not only pushing the video story but also saying that the 
consulate security was strong, it was substantial, it was significant, 
when there is no evidence to support that? It all goes to the contrary.
  There has been a lot of discussion about the video. Ambassador Rice 
goes on the Sunday shows and she talks about the video. She talks about 
the causal effect of the video in terms of the attacks on the 
consulate. What she essentially says is this: This was a direct result 
of a heinous and offensive video which was widely disseminated and 
which the U.S. Government had nothing to do with and which we have made 
clear is reprehensible and disgusting. And we have also been very clear 
in saying that there is no excuse for violence, that we have condemned 
it in the strongest possible terms.
  This ``direct result of a heinous and offensive video,'' which she 
said on all those Sunday shows and which the President then also talked 
about in the interviews: 1 week later on David Letterman; the 
interview, 9 days after the attack, on Univision; and the interview 
almost 2 weeks later on ``The View''--why are they still talking about 
the video?
  From the beginning, I have thought the talking points were 
fascinating. These talking points were created for dissemination. 
Ambassador Susan Rice was given these talking points, she said she 
relied upon them, and there are serious deficiencies with these talking 
points.
  Even so, I challenge people to find any reference to a video in these 
talking points. I have looked and looked, and I couldn't see the word 
``video'' in these talking points anywhere. Yet we have Ambassador 
Susan Rice, on behalf of the administration, on September 16 on every 
Sunday show, talking about the video. We have the President of the 
United States on David Letterman 1 week later, then 9 days later, after 
the attack, on Univision, and almost 2 weeks later, 13 days later on 
``The View'' talking about a video. Yet there isn't a reference to a 
video in these talking points. I have never understood. Where did the 
video story come from? Do you think we will ever get the answer? I 
think we deserve an answer to that, especially now.
  Because of the recent Senate intel report, we know that the Deputy 
Director of the CIA, the day before Ambassador Rice first appeared on 
those Sunday shows to tell this story, received this email which 
reported that the attacks were ``not/not an escalation of protests.'' 
So if it is not an escalation of protests--let's look at these talking 
points again. These talking points do not refer to a video. We are not 
sure how that story got told.
  Why is it that the talking points that went out say: Available 
information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were 
spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and 
evolved into a direct assault against our U.S. diplomatic post in 
Benghazi and subsequently its annex and that they were participating in 
violent demonstrations. Why wasn't what they learned the day before 
taken into account in terms of what was represented to the American 
people? I think a bigger question is, How is it that the Deputy 
Director of the CIA can receive relevant and important information and 
that information never gets to the President of the United States as 
late as 9 days later? On September 24, on ``The View,'' he is still 
talking about this video. Yet it turns out the video never had anything 
to do with this. It really raises so many questions in terms of the 
tangled web of this whole situation.
  I have yet to talk about what was an incredible change in these 
talking points, which was the removal of the reference to Al Qaeda. 
Before they went through various modifications, the original set of 
talking points talked about Al Qaeda or the potential of Al Qaeda-
affiliated groups being involved in these attacks. Of course, that now 
has been confirmed by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee 
report recently revealed. But at the time, the reference to Al Qaeda 
was removed from these talking points. It was removed from these 
talking points, and Ambassador Rice was free to go on the Sunday shows 
on September 16, and she said Al Qaeda had been decimated. Imagine if 
the talking points kept the reference to Al Qaeda. Do you think she 
would have gone on every Sunday show and said Al Qaeda had been 
decimated? I would hope not because it was not true that Al Qaeda had 
been decimated, as evidenced by the attack on our consulate.
  So we still don't know who removed the reference and what happened 
with these talking points. But what really troubles me is the Deputy 
Director of the CIA, through the Senate Intelligence Committee report, 
received this email on September 15 which said the attacks were not an 
escalation of protests. He worked on these talking points. He was part 
of the group who actually had feedback on the talking points that went 
out the door. Yet somehow this wasn't included.
  The Al Qaeda reference was removed, and apparently no one, even after 
receiving the actual eyewitness interviews of what happened on the 
scene, ever thought to go to the administration--the President of the 
United States--and correct him: By the way, we are not sure this video 
really pans out, that it is a demonstration and that this is a protest 
in response to a video. Somehow that doesn't get up the chain of 
command? We have big problems if this kind of information is not 
getting up the chain of command. Why those representations were made 
when there was intel that contradicted it has never been answered.
  Finally, and most of all, the President said he was going to bring 
the individuals who committed these attacks to justice. Yet no one has 
been brought to justice. The families who lost loved ones deserve to 
have these terrorists brought to justice. And what we have seen in some 
of the reports--the intelligence committee itself essentially 
identifies that more than 1 year after the Benghazi attacks, the 
terrorists who perpetrated the attacks have still not been brought to 
justice.
  The intelligence community has identified several individuals 
responsible for the attacks. Some of these individuals have been 
identified with a strong level of confidence. So why hasn't anyone been 
brought to justice? Why haven't we pursued this to pick up the people 
who committed these terrorist attacks and to hold them accountable? The 
victims deserve justice, and they have not seen justice. I hope we will 
get those who murdered our Ambassador and three other brave Americans 
on September 11, 2012, and bring them to justice. It is totally 
unacceptable that has not yet happened.
  We have seen press reports of people like Abu Khattala--reported to 
have established Ansar al-Sharia, an Al Qaeda-affiliated group, and 
identified as a prior commander of this group--identified by witnesses 
as being there that night during the attacks on our consulate, and yet 
we haven't picked him up or anyone else. In fact, he is sitting at 
cafes, and press in the United States are able to find him, interview 
him, talk to him, and yet we haven't brought him or anyone else in. 
There have been news reports that there may be a secret warrant for 
him, but he hasn't been brought in. Where is the attention to this?
  I have talked about this tangled web which has been woven, which is 
really troubling in terms of the misimpressions and misleading nature 
of how this has been represented to the American people. But I hope we 
will all focus on bringing the people who committed these terrorist 
attacks to justice because the victims of these terrorist attacks 
deserve justice.
  The terrorists who committed these acts against our consulate need to 
know that we are coming after them and that we are going to hold them 
accountable. If you commit a terrorist attack against our country, you 
should not be in a position to be out drinking coffee in a cafe. You 
need to be held accountable.
  We need to send a message to other terrorists: Don't mess with the 
United

[[Page 2483]]

States of America, because right now they are getting the opposite 
message with no one being held accountable for the terrorist attacks on 
our consulate on September 11, 2012.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                             Foreign Policy

  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from New Hampshire for 
her stirring remarks on the terrorist attacks in Benghazi and urge that 
we pay heed to the words she said. It is striking--the Senator from New 
Hampshire has said more about that terrorist attack than our Commander 
in Chief has ever said.
  We are at a time where Tolkien's classic ``The Hobbit'' is one of the 
best-selling, most popular movies in the country. ``The Hobbit'' is a 
fantasy story. In Washington, we were visited with fantasy last week in 
the President's State of the Union Address. I would like to talk about 
the contrast, concerning foreign policy, between the fantasy presented 
to the American people and the cold, hard realities of the dangerous 
world in which we live--which is only getting more and more dangerous.
  In his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama gave 
some revealing clues as to how he believed the United States should 
interact with the rest of the world.
  On the whole, his remarks encourage Americans not to worry too much 
about international challenges. He suggested the situations in Syria 
and Iran are being definitely managed by American diplomats; that Al 
Qaeda is now a regional nuisance that can be outsourced to surrogates; 
that our relationship with Israel is defined by the Palestinian peace 
process, which will also be resolved in short order through American 
diplomacy; and that our interest in Ukraine is to express support for 
the abstract principle that all people should peacefully participate in 
their own governance. In this rosy scenario, difficult challenges such 
as the deadly terrorist attacks on Benghazi on September 11, 2012, or 
the long and painful ordeal of Pastor Saeed Abedini in an Iranian 
prison simply do not exist.
  I wish we all lived in the utopian world President Obama painted last 
week. But in just a week, numerous news reports have come out to 
suggest that picture belongs far more in the world of fantasy than 
reality. In the interests of being honest with the American people--
which I wish our Commander in Chief had done--I would like to contrast 
reality with what we were told last week.
  On Syria, in the State of the Union Address, the President claimed:

       American diplomacy, backed by the threat of force, is why 
     serious chemical weapons are being eliminated, and we will 
     continue to work with the international community to usher in 
     the future the Syrian people deserve--a future free of 
     dictatorship, terror, and fear.

  That is truly a rosy scenario. Yet, what is the reality? On Sunday, 
just 4 days after the President delivered the State of the Union 
Address, Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly told a congressional 
delegation that the administration's Syria policy is on the brink of 
collapse. Syria's chemical weapons are purportedly being destroyed 
through the intervention of Vladimir Putin in what was a major 
diplomatic victory for the Russian strongman. But we have learned in 
recent days that this process has not proceeded as promised. The 
Syrians have ignored their deadlines and only 4 percent of the 
stockpiles have been eliminated, undoubtedly because Assad knows there 
is no compelling reason for him to comply. As for what the Syrian 
people deserve, after 3 years of rudderless U.S. policy, over 130,000 
are dead, millions are refugees displaced across the region, and the 
oldest Christian communities on the planet are threatened with 
extinction. Assad is entrenched and Al Qaeda is in control of the 
opposition. Sadly, as a result of the President's mismanagement, today 
we have no good options in Syria. Yet not a word of that made it into 
his State of the Union Address.
  On Iran, the President claimed:

       It is American diplomacy, backed by pressure, that has 
     halted the progress of Iran's nuclear program . . .

  The reality is quite different. No enriched uranium has been 
destroyed--not a pound--and no centrifuges have been dismantled. The 
Iranians quickly refuted the President's claim in the State of the 
Union, announcing, quite publicly, that they have not halted their 
progress in the slightest. America's closest ally in the region, the 
nation of Israel, has called this a ``very, very bad deal.'' Indeed, 
Prime Minister Netanyahu has referred to it as a ``historic mistake.'' 
Yet the President proceeds on and the Senate refuses even to allow a 
vote on reimposing sanctions to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear 
weapons capability. There has been no renunciation of Iran's State 
sponsorship of terrorism that killed Americans in Lebanon and in Saudi 
Arabia and in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The mullahs have gone on a 
hanging spree, executing some 40 people in the first two weeks of 
January alone. Meanwhile, billions of dollars are flowing into the 
country, both through relaxed sanctions and Iran's reemergence as a 
legitimate business partner because of this administration's misguided 
deal. Indeed, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani might almost be forgiven 
for publicly gloating that ``the Geneva deal means the surrender of the 
big powers in front of the great nation of Iran.'' I wish he was not 
speaking the truth. That reality did not emerge on the House floor last 
week.
  On the House floor, the President claimed:

       If John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan could negotiate with 
     the Soviet Union, then surely a strong and confident America 
     can negotiate with less powerful adversaries today.

  The reality is the claim that we are negotiating with Iran from a 
position of strength and confidence is a blinkered view of reality 
because it isn't even clear our President is negotiating towards actual 
victory. Capitulation is not victory. President Obama announced in the 
State of the Union that in order to keep negotiations going, he would 
veto any additional sanctions Congress might pass to pressure Iran to 
actually stop pursuing nuclear weapons--a position that is supported 
not only by his current administration, but expressly by his former 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad 
Zarif has good reason to announce publicly he has no ``fear'' of 
Congress. When Ronald Reagan negotiated with the Soviets, he did it 
from a clear, strategic perspective of ``we win, they lose,'' standing 
for U.S. national interests. He was facing an existential threat that 
he defined as ``the Evil Empire.'' There was no danger or 
misunderstanding of what the goal was or who was going to be doing the 
surrendering. As a result of his leadership, the Cold War was won 
without firing a shot. Today, on Iran, we are tragically repeating the 
mistakes of the past--in particular, the mistakes of the Clinton 
administration--in relaxing sanctions on North Korea for the same empty 
promises that they would cease developing nuclear weapons only to have 
North Korea use the billions of dollars we sent to them--or allowed to 
go to them--to develop nuclear weapons. The difference is the North 
Korean leader is motivated by staying in power, which means some form 
of rational deterrence is hopefully possible. In Iran, the supreme 
leader has made clear his desire to destroy the nation of Israel and as 
a result of the billions of dollars going to Iran right now, the risk 
is unacceptably high that we discover the same thing that happened in 
North Korea happened in Iran, except that we discover it because Iran, 
in pursuit of Jihad, detonates a nuclear device over Tel Aviv or New 
York or Los Angeles. Not a word of that was acknowledged in the 
President's speech.
  On Al Qaeda, President Obama claimed:

       While we have put Al Qaeda's core leadership on a path to 
     defeat, the threat has evolved, as Al Qaeda affiliates and 
     other extremists take root in different parts of the world--
     in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Mali, and we have to keep 
     working with partners to disrupt and disable those networks.

  The reality is that whatever path Al Qaeda is on, it does not 
currently appear to be towards defeat. The recent

[[Page 2484]]

assertion by a State Department spokeswoman that Ayman al-Zawahiri is 
the only core Al Qaeda member left and that thus the threat has been 
decimated by the President is demonstrably false. For starters, 
Zawahiri is no mere abstract threat. He explicitly called for attacks 
on the United States on September 10, 2012, the day before the 
terrorist attack that claimed the lives of four Americans in Benghazi, 
including the first U.S. ambassador killed on duty since 1979. Zawahiri 
is actively involved in directing Al Qaeda groups that are active in 
Syria. But core or not core--whatever that means--the reality is that 
Al Qaeda has been at war with the United States for more than two 
decades and the attacks of September 11, 2001, are only the most 
spectacular of a series of attacks and attempted attacks launched at 
us. Trying to parse this threat to make it seem less deadly, to make it 
seem like less of a threat to Americans, will not make it so. We need 
to confront what attacked us in 2001. We cannot defeat radical Islamic 
terrorism when the President seems unwilling to utter the words 
``radical Islamic terrorism.'' Indeed, the recent Senate Select 
Committee on Intelligence documented that what attacked us in Libya in 
2012 is the very same thing that attacked us on September 11, 2001. We 
should not aim simply to disrupt or to disable Al Qaeda terrorists. We 
should aim to defeat them.
  On Israel, in the State of the Union, the President had one mention 
of Israel in that speech. He said:

       American diplomacy is supporting Israelis and Palestinians 
     as they engage in difficult but necessary talks to end the 
     conflict there; to achieve dignity and an independent state 
     for Palestinians, and a lasting peace and security for the 
     State of Israel--a Jewish State that knows America will 
     always be at their side.

  The reality is sadly much different. Over the weekend, we saw a 
diplomatic spat play out in the press over allegations that Secretary 
of State Kerry is actively working behind the scenes to encourage 
European countries to threaten Israel with boycotts if the Israelis 
don't agree to whatever framework Mr. Kerry will propose in two weeks. 
Rather than threats from the U.S. Secretary of State, and rather than 
tweets from National Security Advisor Susan Rice criticizing Israel, 
instead, the United States should stand unequivocally with our friend 
and ally, the nation of Israel. We should reaffirm Israel's unique 
status as a strong, democratic ally in the Middle East, a uniquely 
Jewish State, and that the United States appreciates the excruciatingly 
difficult security situation in which Israel finds itself with the 
threat of a nuclear Iran, and that the United States will vigorously 
defend Israel from attacks, from international institutions, from legal 
onslaughts, and from attempts to undermine Israel's economy through 
punitive boycotts, and that the United States is unshakably committed 
to preserving Israel's security, regardless of the status of the peace 
process.
  I commend to my colleagues the recent remarks Canadian Prime Minister 
Stephen Harper gave in Israel. Those are the remarks of an ally 
standing strong with Israel and appreciating the incredible value that 
Israel provides to our national security and to peace in the world. I 
wish our President could speak with a fraction of the clarity and 
solidarity with Israel that the Canadian Prime Minister recently 
provided.
  On Ukraine, the President claimed:

       In Ukraine, we stand for the principle that all people have 
     a right to express themselves freely and peacefully and to 
     have a say in their country's future.

  The reality is the day after the State of the Union, Ukraine's former 
President said that the country teeters on the brink of civil war. 
Protesters have been brutally tortured and murdered. Indeed, one 
opposition leader described how he was recently crucified. The 
Ukrainian people's constitutional rights have been trampled. This 
former Soviet republic has been wrenched away from a proposed trade 
agreement with the EU and a path towards membership in NATO and instead 
thrust back into Russia's sphere of influence by a corrupt and 
autocratic leader, depriving the United States of an important economic 
and security partner.
  We need to tell this story. We need to look for concrete actions we 
can take right now to demonstrate real support for the opposition, to 
demonstrate real support that Ukraine is welcomed by the West, and that 
we will not accede to Putin's efforts to reassemble the old Soviet 
Union and place Ukraine under its domination.
  We can start by immediately offering a free-trade agreement to 
Ukraine and partnerships to help them build natural gas infrastructure 
so they need not remain dependent upon Russia, which uses natural gas 
to blackmail them, and we could immediately release exports of liquid 
natural gas from the United States in conjunction with helping with 
that infrastructure.
  Surely, the people gathering in the frozen snow of Maidan Square, 
crying out for the freedom of the West, deserve more from the leader of 
the free world than mere blandishments about abstract universal rights.
  If you are standing in the frozen streets of Kiev, being beaten, 
bleeding--naked, as one opposition leader was--and yet standing proud 
for freedom, empty generalities from the President do you very little 
good.
  On Benghazi, the President claimed nothing. We all remember last 
fall, during the debates in the Presidential election--just over 1 year 
ago--when the President emphatically stated no one cared more about the 
terrorist attack that happened in Benghazi than he did. Yet in the year 
and a half that has followed, the word ``Benghazi'' seems never to 
leave his lips. The reality is we have four Americans murdered in a 
preventable attack, and that is what the Senate Intelligence Committee 
concluded in a bipartisan manner; that this was preventable by Al Qaeda 
terrorists, and more than 16 months later, no one in Washington or 
Libya has been held accountable.
  Congress and the American people, and particularly the families of 
the fallen, deserve the answers that only a joint select committee of 
Congress could get. Yet, sadly, the majority leader and Democrats in 
this Chamber are blocking a joint select committee. ``What difference 
does it make,'' former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked. It 
makes all the difference in the world to ascertain the truth.
  I will note, even though he said not a word about Benghazi in the 
State of the Union, he was forced to say something this week when he 
was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly. Before the Super Bowl, when Bill 
O'Reilly asked him about Benghazi, what is striking--and I would urge 
everyone to go and watch and listen to what the President said--Bill 
O'Reilly asked him: Did Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta tell him that 
night that the attacks were the works of terrorists? Mr. O'Reilly asked 
that question, and yet the President, over and over and over, refused 
to answer a simple yes or no, did Leon Panetta tell him it was the act 
of terrorists. He did not want to answer that question, and indeed he 
did not.
  For those of us who have spent some of our career in a court of law, 
the technical term for his answer was ``nonresponsive,'' and were a 
judge there, he would have directed the President to answer the 
question that was put to him; nor did the President say one word about 
why the talking points were scrubbed to eradicate any mention of 
terrorism and the Al Qaeda affiliates involved.
  We need accountability. We need accountability for those four brave 
Americans who lost their lives to terrorism and need to know why no one 
has been held accountable in the State Department, nor have any of the 
terrorists who committed that attack been brought to justice.
  On Saeed Abedini, the American pastor brutally imprisoned in Iran, 
President Obama in the State of the Union Address said nothing. The 
reality is an American citizen has been wrongly imprisoned in Iran for 
more than 1 year simply for professing his Christian faith. All of us 
are blessed to live in a land where the Constitution guarantees us 
religious liberty. Yet a Christian pastor, going to Iran, professing 
his faith, was thrown in a pit of a jail.
  There is no more compelling evidence that the Supreme Leader in 
Tehran

[[Page 2485]]

represents the very same repressive Islamist regime today that he has 
for so many years and that his goal is not peaceful rapprochement with 
the West but the preservation of his own power.
  The President of the United States should be standing and demanding 
Pastor Saeed Abedini's release, not making his captors into diplomatic 
partners. Indeed, it is notable, in the midst of our negotiations in 
Geneva, the nation of Iran transferred Pastor Saeed Abedini from one 
horrible prison to an even worse prison, where they keep their death 
row, where they send people to die, and he did so on the anniversary of 
Iran's taking Americans hostage--what is referred to in Iran as ``Death 
to America Day.'' That was not accidental. That was meant to thumb 
their nose at our Nation, and the President--instead of standing for an 
American wrongfully imprisoned for preaching his Christian faith--the 
President instead chose, in the State of the Union Address, to say not 
a word.
  The President concluded his speech on foreign policy by saying:

       Finally let's remember that our leadership is defined not 
     just by our defense against threats, but by the enormous 
     opportunities to do good and promote understanding around the 
     globe--to forge great cooperation, to expand new markets, to 
     free people from fear and want. And no one is better 
     positioned to take advantage of those opportunities than 
     America.

  The reality is, if this past week has proven anything, that American 
leadership is not defined by global opportunities to do good and 
promote understanding. American leadership is defined by defending and 
promoting the values that have made our Nation great.
  We do not do this by ignoring unpleasant realities, refusing to 
acknowledge the terrorist attack in Benghazi, sending administration 
officials out to claim it is not a terrorist attack but the result of 
an Internet video or refusing to stand for an American wrongfully 
imprisoned in Iran for preaching his Christian faith, and we do not do 
this by refusing to admit failure but by standing and facing our 
challenges, accepting responsibility for our actions, and speaking out 
with a clarion voice for the freedoms we enjoy--freedoms that should be 
the aspiration of every man and woman on the planet.
  Leading from behind does not work. As a result of this 
administration's misguided foreign policy, the world has become a much 
more dangerous place in the last 5 years. U.S. national security 
interests have been endangered dramatically. We see nations such as 
Russia increasing their sphere of influence, while the threats to the 
security of men and women throughout America grow and multiply.
  Standing strongly with like-minded allies and encouraging others to 
seek freedom is not disinterested do-gooding; it is vital work that 
will promote the security and prosperity of the United States of 
America, something I believe is ultimately in the interest of all 
mankind.
  I wish, when the President of the United States stood on the floor of 
the House of Representatives to address the Nation and to address the 
world, that when he spoke of foreign policy he had not embraced a 
foreign policy fantasy that disregards the cold, hard reality of the 
dangerous world we live in and the consequences of receding U.S. 
leadership.
  Thank you. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.


           Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to address two issues. The first 
is what is before us. That is the Emergency Unemployment Compensation 
Extension Act. The second is something that should be before us; that 
is, the confirmation of the U.S. attorney for Minnesota. This will be 
the third time in a few days that I have spoken on this issue, which I 
will continue to do so until this gets done.
  I rise in support of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation 
Extension Act. I know we are making progress on a proposal that extends 
Federal support for emergency unemployment compensation for 3 months 
and is fully offset.
  I have spoken about the need to extend Federal support for 
unemployment insurance, and I would like to thank Senator Jack Reed and 
Senator Dean Heller for their bipartisan leadership on this issue.
  Unemployment insurance provides a critical lifeline. Workers pay into 
the program so it will be there when they are looking for work. 
Unemployment insurance helps families pay the mortgage or rent and put 
gas in the tank. Federal support for unemployment insurance is crucial 
for those Americans who exhaust their State-funded benefits and are 
still looking for work.
  Throughout my time as the Senate chair of the Joint Economic 
Committee, I have focused on the continuing problem of long-term 
unemployment. Last month, I issued a Joint Economic Committee report 
that makes the clear economic case for extending Federal support for 
unemployment insurance, which keeps those Americans afloat, those 
Americans who are continuing to search for work.
  The long-term unemployment rate now stands at 2.5 percent, nearly 
twice as high as when these benefits expired during the last recession.
  We already know the consequences of allowing the Federal benefits to 
expire are not good. At the end of last year, 1.3 million workers lost 
all unemployment benefits, and another 3.6 million jobless workers 
could lose their benefits this year.
  In my home State, roughly 9,200 people lost benefits at the end of 
last year and about 65,000 workers could lose their unemployment 
insurance by the end of this year.
  Now is not the time for Congress to cut off extended unemployment 
insurance for those people who have been actively looking for work for 
more than 26 weeks.
  These are not the people, as you know, who benefited from the uptick 
in the stock market over the last few years. They do not have stock 
portfolios. They are not checking the stock rate. They have not noticed 
that it has gone down a little bit recently, and they have not noticed 
that it went up all last year. They are just trying to put food on 
their table and keep a roof over their head. They are people who live 
in our States and who are our neighbors.
  I have heard from countless Minnesotans who are sharing their stories 
with me about how unemployment insurance is a lifeline for their 
families and that ending Federal support for the long-term unemployed 
would be devastating.
  I am sharing some of these letters because they tell the stories of 
hard-working Americans who are doing their best to look for work and 
support their families.
  Linda from Little Falls wrote:

       Dear Amy,
       Please, please, please fight to extend the emergency 
     unemployment past the end of the year. My husband and I are 
     both still unemployed, by no fault of our own, and are both 
     over 55. We are having a very difficult time finding 
     employment, and to stop this program would be devastating for 
     us and many others that we know. My husband was at his job 
     for 37 years and they closed the doors, and I made more than 
     some of the more junior people in my office, so I was let go 
     first.

  Think of that: a couple, the man working at his job for 37 years, the 
woman more senior at her job saying she was let go because she made 
more money than others in the office.
  She ends by saying:

       Please help to get this extended. I feel like the people 
     who are still left jobless are being forgotten!
       Thank you. . . .

  Second letter, Donna from Prior Lake. She says this:

       . . . Having worked for over 30 plus years of my life, I am 
     currently unemployed. I have applied for over 300 positions 
     during the last 6 months. I do not expect a handout but I was 
     really disappointed when I found out that I could no longer 
     receive unemployment insurance after the 28th of December. . 
     . .
       It's not that I am not trying to work, or that I am not 
     looking for a position, but I am 55 years old and my full 
     time job right now is to find a job. I am looking for 
     temporary, full time, part-time, contract work. I would like 
     to know that my congress people are doing the same for me. 
     Donna.

  Thirty-plus years of working. She is 55 years old. She has applied 
for over

[[Page 2486]]

300 positions. That is who we are talking about here. These are the 
people we are talking about when we talk about this kind of long-term 
extension of unemployment. It is something I hope my colleagues will 
keep in mind as we move forward and get this done and get this passed.


                        Andrew Luger Nomination

  Now I would like to turn to another matter. The only thing these two 
have in common is they are both kind of victims of stalled-out 
situations of gridlock. The second one is about one person, but it is 
not really about one person, it is about a system of justice and it is 
about a decision on the part of the United States, part of our Founding 
Fathers, the part of our Congress that is going way back, that we would 
have a U.S. attorney in most States in this country, that we would have 
a U.S. attorney who would be charged with enforcing the Federal laws, 
that the Congress would have a role in deciding who that U.S. attorney 
would be, that the President would recommend, would appoint someone, 
and then the Congress has the job of simply deciding if that person is 
qualified or not for the job.
  But it is not even just about one person or one system of government, 
it is also about the people who work in the U.S. attorney's office, in 
the case of the district of Minnesota, over 100 people, over 50 people 
who are prosecutors working in the office who deserve to have a full-
time leader in the U.S. attorney's job.
  For 2\1/2\ years, 888 days--I counted each day--Minnesota has not had 
a full-time U.S. attorney. It is a modern-day record. During those 
years, from August 2011 to August 2013, B. Todd Jones was responsible 
for doing two jobs. He was the Minnesota U.S. attorney, and as those of 
us involved in the long vote in this Chamber that lasted over 8 hours 
remember, he was also the Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They had not had a full-time 
confirmed Director for 7 years. So he went in after the mess with Fast 
and Furious and was willing to be the Acting Director. At the same time 
he was the U.S. attorney for Minnesota. As you can imagine, there was a 
lot of work and cleanup to do at the ATF. That was where he was focused 
for most of his time.
  Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota kept going. But at 
some point after 2\1/2\ years, you cannot keep going on your own. Over 
the summer, the Senate finally confirmed B. Todd Jones as Director of 
the ATF, leaving the Minnesota U.S. attorney's position finally open 
for good. Even before the confirmation of B. Todd Jones, Senator 
Franken and I, upon the recommendation of our bipartisan U.S. Attorney 
Advisory Committee, had already recommended Andy Luger, Assistant U.S. 
Attorney, to fill the position. That was 197 days ago.
  In November, President Obama nominated Andy Luger to become the new 
U.S. attorney. The Judiciary Committee approved his nomination 
unanimously on January 9. Our colleague from Texas, Senator Cruz, had 
no objection to this nomination. We had no objections on the committee, 
which is saying a lot, because we have a lot of different people from 
different backgrounds and different political views on the committee.
  Usually when people speak on nominations on the floor, it is because 
they are fighting to get someone through because there is an objection. 
This is not at all the case in the case of Andy Luger, who is trying to 
be the U.S. attorney for Minnesota.
  What has happened in past cases with U.S. attorneys? Over the past 20 
years, 4 Minnesota nominees to be U.S. attorney, appointed by 
Republican and Democratic Presidents alike, were confirmed within a day 
of when they passed out of the committee. During this timeframe, all of 
the nominees were confirmed within an average of 9\1/2\ days of being 
voted out of committee.
  It has been 26 days since Mr. Luger was approved by the committee. It 
is time that we do the right thing by quickly confirming him to make 
sure that Minnesota has its highest law enforcement officer in place.
  I want to thank Senator Grassley for his help on this. He actually 
also has a U.S. attorney who is pending for the District of Iowa.
  Why is the U.S. attorney important? I thought our pages would be 
interested in this fact, because we are going to be talking a lot about 
the U.S. attorney over the next few weeks if this keeps going on. The 
position of U.S. attorney is a law enforcement post that the Founders 
regarded as so vital that they created it during the very first 
Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789. This is the same act that 
created the Attorney General and the structure of the Supreme Court and 
the lower courts. According to the act, each judicial district would be 
provided with:

       a person learned in the law to act as attorney for the 
     United States . . . whose duty it shall be to prosecute in 
     each district all delinquents for crimes and offenses 
     cognizable under the authority of the United States, and all 
     civil actions in which the United States shall be concerned . 
     . .

  The U.S. attorney is a position so necessary that President Zachary 
Taylor appointed Henry Moss--this is a name you may not have heard of 
before--to the post within 2 days of Minnesota becoming a State. So 
back then somehow they are able to get it done in 2 days. Now, we have 
been waiting 888 days. But in 2 days they were able to get a U.S. 
attorney in the job when Minnesota first became a State.
  Since 1849, the District of Minnesota's 31 U.S. attorneys have upheld 
the rule of law, the Constitution, and the rights of our State's 
citizens and tirelessly pursued justice on their behalf. This quick 
action by President Taylor and the speed with which the Senate has 
confirmed past U.S. attorneys for Minnesota shows how much our 
government has historically valued this position.
  These people have not been used as pawns in some kind of a fight over 
other issues, they have simply been confirmed. We have simply gotten it 
done. I think we can all agree, given what we have seen with the heroin 
cases that are on the rise all over the country in the last few 
months--this has certainly come to our attention in Minnesota. In 
Hennepin County alone, 60 opiate-related deaths in 1 county in our 
State in just 6 months of the year. So I think we can all agree that 
the importance of this position is no less important than it was in 
1789 when this job was created.
  Since the founding of the country, we have recognized the great 
authority placed in the hands of U.S. attorneys to uphold the rule of 
law, to protect our freedoms, and to exercise their power responsibly 
and only for just ends. A 1935 Supreme Court decision called Berger v. 
United States has gained iconic status for Justice Sutherland's 
description of a prosecutor's duty to follow the rule of law, serve 
justice, and play by the rules. Justice Sutherland so aptly wrote:

       The United States Attorney is the representative not of an 
     ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose 
     obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its 
     obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, 
     in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, 
     but that justice shall be done.
       As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the 
     servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt 
     shall not escape nor innocence suffer. He--
  And we could say he or she for the modern day.

     --may prosecute with earnestness and vigor--indeed, he should 
     do so. But, while he my strike hard blows, he is not at 
     liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to 
     refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a 
     wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to 
     bring about a just one.

  That is the kind of statement that rings as true today as it did 
nearly 80 years ago. The men and women in the Minnesota U.S. attorney's 
office exemplify the professionalism, high ethical standards, and 
unwavering commitments to the rule of law and public safety that we 
expect of prosecutors. They work to protect public safety by focusing 
on offenders who harm our communities: terrorists, the ``worst of the 
worst'' violent criminals and drug traffickers, and major financial 
fraudsters.
  They also work closely with local law enforcement to ensure local and 
Federal resources are used efficiently and

[[Page 2487]]

effectively to prevent crime and lock up criminals.
  For example, the office won a conviction in a $3.65 billion Ponzi 
scheme case, the second biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. Now this 
case was originated when, in fact, they had a full-time U.S. attorney. 
Most of the prosecution did take place when they had a full-time U.S. 
attorney in the office. Of course, with a major case like this, you 
would want a full-time U.S. attorney there to make critical decisions.
  Also the office has an ongoing terrorism investigation that has led 
to charges against 18 people for aiding the terrorist organization al-
Shabaab--8 of whom have been convicted, some receiving sentences of up 
to 20 years in prison.
  So at some point, as that investigation continues, one wonders why 
the United States of America would want to have an office overseeing 
and prosecuting major terrorist cases without having a full-time U.S. 
attorney. I do wonder if this would ever happen in New York City or in 
the city of Chicago. I hope people keep this in mind as they look at 
the situation.
  Other major accomplishments of the office include Operation Highlife, 
a major drug trafficking investigation involving more than 100 local, 
State, and Federal law enforcement officers that resulted in 26 
indictments, 25 guilty pleas, and sentences of up to 200 months in 
prison.
  Operation Brother's Keeper, a successful investigation and 
prosecution of a RICO case involving a regional 200-member gang, took 
22 dangerous criminals off the streets. This does not sound like a case 
that should be handled by an office that does not deserve a full-time 
U.S. attorney. That would be the prosecution of a RICO case involving a 
regional 200-member gang.
  Or how about Operation Malverde, which received national attention, 
and was a prosecution of 27 defendants associated with a Mexican drug 
cartel, including the apprehension of the cartel's regional leader, and 
sentences as high as 20 years in prison.
  The office also recently played a key role in shutting down a major 
synthetic drug seller in Duluth. This head shop was a major problem. 
They went after this head shop. They prosecuted the owner. The owner 
was recently in his house and was found to have over $700,000 in 
plastic bags hidden in his bathroom. They won that case.
  These are just a few of the major cases that office has worked on in 
recent years. I will be telling you more in the days to come.
  After 888 days without a full-time boss, these hard-working people 
deserve a leader, and Mr. Luger is the right person for the job. Again, 
I am not up here speaking about this because anyone in the Senate 
objects to Mr. Luger for the job.
  It is time we vote on Mr. Luger's nomination. In the past, as we 
know, U.S. attorney nominations have simply gone through on voice 
votes, without much hurrah, within a few days after they go through the 
committee. Mr. Luger is a dedicated public servant and has the breadth 
of experience, strength of character, and commitment to justice that 
makes him a well-qualified candidate to serve as Minnesota's next U.S. 
attorney. I have no doubt that he will uphold the principles Justice 
Sutherland sought in that opinion in a U.S. attorney. I urge my 
colleagues to support Mr. Luger's confirmation and to finally give the 
Minnesota U.S. attorney's office and its hard-working prosecutor the 
full-time U.S. attorney they deserve.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRANKEN. 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 Farm Bill

  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I am very pleased that we were able to 
vote on and pass a badly needed and long-overdue 5-year farm bill today 
and that we are finally on the verge of enacting the legislation into 
law with the President's signature.
  With one in five jobs in Minnesota connected to agriculture, passing 
this bill has been a top priority of mine. I have been working on it 
for over 2\1/2\ years, along with a large number of my colleagues, and 
I have gone all around Minnesota talking to farmers and businesses. 
They tell me not only did they want a 5-year farm bill, but they needed 
a 5-year farm bill so they could plan for the future. Well, we finally 
have gotten it done.
  There are so many important pieces to this bill, and I want to speak 
about a few of them today.
  When I meet with farm leaders and visit farms all across Minnesota, I 
hear over and over about the importance of providing farmers with a 
strong safety net. There is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to 
farming. Once a farmer puts his crop into the ground, the crops are 
vulnerable to drought, to too much rain, to disease, and different 
kinds of pests and to other natural disasters. In 2012, for example, we 
witnessed a terrible drought that devastated the Nation's corn and 
soybean crops and forced ranchers to cull their livestock.
  All of these safety net programs in the bill are important because 
they protect our farmers and ranchers, and they also protect American 
consumers by making sure families have a reliable, domestically 
produced supply of food.
  The bill provides disaster assurances for livestock producers. It 
contains a dairy program so our dairy producers have the certainty they 
need. It contains a sugar program to help protect our sugar growers, 
American sugar growers.
  Minnesota is home to a large number of beet sugar growers, and the 
sugar industry provides thousands of good-paying jobs, American jobs, 
and billions of dollars to the economy of our region. I fought to make 
sure we kept this vital program in place.
  This bill also includes crop insurance so farmers have certainty with 
respect to their planting decisions.
  One of the things the farm bill does, which was very important to me 
and to so many people, is to link the crop insurance program to 
conservation. Minnesota farmers are good stewards of the land and 
understand how critical conservation is, and so do our hunters and our 
anglers. With this provision in the farm bill, when our farmers receive 
the crop insurance benefits, they also agree to implement conservation 
practices that are good for our land and for our water.
  In addition to a strong safety net in the conservation provisions, 
the bill also contains many provisions that are very important to 
Minnesota agriculture. For example, I pushed to include provisions to 
support beginning farmers. With the average age of farmers in Minnesota 
approaching 60, we need to invest in a new generation of farmers and 
ranchers. That is why the beginning farmer and rancher program has been 
a priority of mine. This important program will support training and 
education for beginning farmers, and it will help new farmers overcome 
the steep financial hurdles they often face when starting.
  I am also very proud of the comprehensive energy title of the bill, 
which I helped to author. The energy sector in agriculture produces 
jobs and supports rural communities in Minnesota and across the 
country. The energy title includes programs such as the Rural Energy 
for America Program--or REAP--which provides farmers and rural business 
services with loans and grants so they can invest in energy efficiency 
and renewable energy to reduce their energy bills.
  It also includes programs to help rural America develop advanced 
biofuels that will help wean the Nation off of foreign oil. It also 
includes programs to help move the Nation away from a foreign petroleum 
economy, the way products are increasingly made out of homegrown 
renewable biomass. Those are only some of what I fought for in the 
bill. The bill does all of these critically important things while also 
reducing the deficit by billions of dollars.
  Like all bipartisan compromises, the bill is not perfect. In 
particular, I am

[[Page 2488]]

not happy with the cuts to the nutrition program on which so many low-
income families rely. I am somewhat relieved in the end these cuts were 
closer to what was in the original Senate bill than the draconian cuts 
the House of Representatives had called for and passed in their bill. I 
appreciate the tough job, though, my colleagues had on their hands to 
arrive at a final compromise.
  At the end of the day, this is an incredibly important piece of 
legislation that I and many colleagues on both sides of the aisle have 
been working to get over the finish line. I am pleased we have finally 
come together to pass a bipartisan 5-year farm bill that will make 
needed reforms and give farmers the certainty they need to plan for the 
future. The bill we passed will not only support rural America but our 
entire Nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Last week President Obama came to Congress and 
delivered the State of the Union Address. He admitted that under the 
Obama economy too many Americans are still out of work. The President 
didn't admit that his policies were to blame, but he did promise to 
act. He said: ``Wherever and whenever I can take steps without 
legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that's 
what I am going to do.'' What the President promised all of us he 
promised the country last week.
  I believe the President could start by coming clean about how his 
health care law is hurting jobs and harming middle-class Americans.
  Just this morning, the Congressional Budget Office put out their 
estimate that the President's health care law will reduce the number of 
full-time workers by 2.3 million people by the year 2021. That includes 
people who will lose their jobs, people who will have their hours cut, 
and mostly people who will decide not to work. This is one of the 
perverse incentives in this terrible law. It actually encourages able-
bodied people to not work. We are already faced with the lowest labor 
force participation rate we have seen in 35 years and this number they 
have come out with--over 2 million fewer jobs in our economy. When we 
were debating the health care in the Senate and the CBO came out with 
their estimate based on the way they read the law before it went into 
effect, they said this could negatively impact jobs and the economy to 
the tune of 800,000. Now we are at 2\1/2\ times that many--over 2 
million fewer jobs--and as a result specifically of the health care 
law. We should be doing all we can to increase labor force 
participation. The health care law actually pushes it in the opposite 
direction.
  The Congressional Budget Office also said this morning that the 
health care law will provide health insurance to 2 million fewer people 
this year than previous estimates had expected. One of the main reasons 
Democrats insisted they needed to pass this law in the first place was 
to cover uninsured people. Now the Congressional Budget Office doesn't 
even expect it to do the job the Democrats intended it to do very well.
  The law is raising costs, it is hurting middle-class Americans, and 
not even helping the people the Democrats told us it was going to help 
in the first place. President Obama promised last week to act and to do 
something to create jobs. What we see is this health care law is 
actually reducing jobs and reducing the number of people working. There 
are other things the President could do to help create jobs. The first 
thing, though, would be to work with Republicans to help repeal the 
health care law and come up with reforms that will actually work.
  He could also look at a number of the options on the energy front 
that would help the private sector create jobs--no government money 
needed.
  The President says he wants to do things that don't require 
legislation. Without any legislation at all, the President could 
approve the Keystone XL Pipeline and expand opportunity for thousands 
of American families.
  Over the past 5 years, a small number of lawyers, consultants, 
bureaucrats, and environmental activists have made a living over 
haggling about the pipeline. Meanwhile, the President has turned his 
back on middle-class people who are in need of jobs, desperate need of 
jobs--people living in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, other States.
  TransCanada submitted its application for a permit to build the 
Keystone XL Pipeline more than 5 years ago. Ever since, President Obama 
has wasted America's time and money grasping for excuses in order for 
him to be able to reject it.
  The State Department's latest environmental review confirms yet again 
that the pipeline shows no significant environmental impact, and it 
will support more than 42,000 jobs. Last summer, the President sneered 
at those jobs. He said they were just ``a blip relative to the need.'' 
For out-of-work Americans, those jobs are more than a blip. For them, 
this is more than a pipeline, it is a lifeline. It is way past time for 
President Obama to quit stalling and to finally do the right thing for 
those Americans.
  They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and 
over and expecting different results. Yet the Obama administration has 
been doing the same thing over and over.
  We have had a draft environmental impact statement. We have had a 
supplemental environmental impact statement, we have had a final 
environmental impact statement, then we have had a draft supplemental 
impact statement, and Friday we had the final supplemental 
environmental impact statement.
  People at home listening to this would say why would it take 2 
years--and it did, it took 2 years--to go from the supplemental draft 
environmental impact to the draft supplemental environmental impact 
statement. It makes no sense at all. This is the fifth report by the 
State Department and the conclusion is always the same. They could do 
this report another 5 times or another 50 times. The result is still 
going to be the same. It is a simple cost-benefit analysis. The cost is 
no significant environmental impact. The benefits are at least 42,000 
jobs and a chance to reduce our dependence on overseas oil.
  Now that the complaints from the far-left environmental extremists 
have been debunked, what do they say? According to the news reports, 
some will have protests and some are planning lawsuits. The Washington 
Post had a story this Sunday entitled ``For pipeline, the `gut check' 
moment.'' It talked about some of the fanatical anti-energy protesters 
who refuse to accept the science. They want to pressure the President 
and Secretary of State Kerry to make sure these jobs never get created. 
This is one good quote: ``Neva Goodwin, co-director of the Global 
Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University and a 
contributor to Kerry's past campaigns, said that she will be opposing 
the pipeline in another way.''
  The article quotes her as saying: ``I am working with an informal 
network of political donors that will be pushing Kerry to do the right 
thing.''
  Political donors and activists on the left are committed to killing 
this pipeline, regardless of the science, regardless of the middle-
class jobs, and regardless of what is in the best interests of the 
country.
  I find it astonishing that former Energy Secretary Steven Chu said 
yesterday, on this very point, what about the science, what about the 
cost-benefit analysis. President Obama's former Secretary of Energy 
said yesterday: ``The decision on whether the construction should 
happen was a political one, not a scientific one.'' So much for the 
President of the United States saying the decision would be based on 
science.
  The President's activist base will be mobilizing and fighting against 
good American jobs. So what does the administration itself say? It says 
it wants to wait for some more opinions.
  The White House Chief of Staff said Sunday that the President wants 
officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy 
Department, and other agencies to tell him what they think. I know what 
the former Secretary of Energy thought. He said the decision on whether 
the construction should happen was a political decision, not a 
scientific one.

[[Page 2489]]

  You don't need to look any further. Look at the history of the 
project. TransCanada applied to build this pipeline more than 5 years 
ago. The Obama administration has set deadlines and said it would make 
a decision. First, it was the end of 2011; then it was after the 
election in 2012; and then it was at the end of 2013. That is what 
President Obama promised Republican Senators when he met with us last 
March. The administration has missed every deadline, broken every 
promise. It is interesting because the last time the Senate voted on 
the subject, 17 Democrats joined every Republican to support the 
pipeline.
  The Obama administration is still trying to find a way to evade and 
to avoid having to make a decision. This really ought to be 
embarrassing to an administration. President Obama was elected to make 
decisions. The science is settled. The President should be embarrassed 
when his former Secretary of Energy says the decision on whether the 
construction should happen was a political one and not a scientific 
one.
  Any objections have been heard; they have been answered. There are no 
more excuses. It is time for the President to make up his mind. Is he 
going to follow the science or just the politics? He should approve the 
Keystone XL Pipeline. He should do it now. He should do the job he was 
elected to do so middle-class Americans can do the jobs they 
desperately want to do.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, what is the parliamentary situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to proceed to S. 1963.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


        Supporting Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, last week, Attorney General Eric Holder 
appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a regular oversight 
hearing. I appreciated the Attorney General's cooperation and 
willingness to appear before the Committee to discuss a variety of 
important matters. His testimony reminded us of the Justice 
Department's central role in carrying out the policy of Congress to 
support our Nation's law enforcement officers and first responders.
  There is one vital program that provides support to the families of 
fallen law enforcement officers and other first responders, and that is 
the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program--the PSOB. I am proud to 
have authored legislation that has expanded and improved the PSOB in 
important ways so that we honor the sacrifices made by our law 
enforcement officers and first responders. From my Hometown Heroes 
Survivors Benefits Act to the Dale Long Public Safety Officers' 
Benefits Improvement Act, I have fought to make sure that all of the 
families who have lost an officer or first responder are honored. We 
got those laws passed to honor the service of these dedicated first 
responders and we exercised considerable oversight to make sure the 
program was administered fairly and efficiently. We wish we didn't need 
the PSOB program because it is a reminder to Americans about the 
dangers law enforcement officers face every day. But because they do 
face those dangers, we need the program. I thank the Attorney General 
for his leadership and commitment to making this program more 
responsive to Congressional intent and more effective for grieving 
families.
  Sadly, in 2013, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund 
reported that 111 law enforcement officers in the United States were 
killed in the line of duty. This preliminary data reflects an eight 
percent decrease from the number of officer fatalities in 2012, and 
amounts to the fewest line of duty deaths in more than five decades. 
This trend is good news, but Congress must not let up on its effort to 
increase officer safety. Every single line-of-duty death represents 
enormous tragedy for the families but also for the communities of these 
officers.
  For decades, Congress has been steadfast in its support of law 
enforcement officers, and has traditionally maintained policies to 
increase officer safety and well-being. Until recently, Congress has 
acted decisively in support of those who dedicate themselves to 
protecting their communities. As someone who had the privilege to serve 
in law enforcement for 8 years, I am so proud of what we have done in 
the past. But now, for some reason, there are some in Congress who do 
not believe the support of law enforcement officers and first 
responders can be a Federal responsibility. I disagree. I remain 
committed to fighting for all of our State and local law enforcement 
officials.
  Last fall the Senate Judiciary Committee reported two important bills 
to support our Nation's law enforcement officers. Both bills would help 
protect the lives of law enforcement officers. Both have been approved 
in this body for immediate passage by every single Democratic Senator. 
Unfortunately, there are some Republican Senators who continue to 
obstruct passage of both bills in the Senate. I worry that some are 
putting ideology ahead of the safety of our law enforcement officers.
  More than a decade ago, a Republican Senator from Colorado, Senator 
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and I joined forces--again, because both of us 
had a law enforcement background--and we authored the Bulletproof Vest 
Partnership Grant Act. We worked across the aisle to get both 
Republicans and Democrats to support us, and we created a grant program 
that has assisted State and local law enforcement agencies in 
purchasing more than 1 million protective vests.
  In fact, Madam President, I remember a police officer who testified 
before the Judiciary Committee telling us how much he loved law 
enforcement, but what he loved even more was his family, his parents, 
his wife, and his children. When he talked, he said: I came within a 
second of never being with them again. He said: This is what saved me. 
He pulled up from under the desk a bulletproof vest and we could see 
the slugs stuck in it. He said: I was ambushed and had a cracked rib, 
but later that day I saw my family. Without this vest and the 
Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act, I never would have seen my 
family again.
  Between 2000 and 2010, the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act has 
been reauthorized three times by unanimous consent. Bulletproof vests 
have saved the lives of more than 3,000 law enforcement officers. These 
are officers who put their own lives on the line. They do not stop to 
say: Wait a minute, how did people vote on the bulletproof vest act? 
They respond when they are called.
  Unfortunately, since 2012, a few Republican Senators have blocked 
passage of this bill and thwarted the vast majority of senators who 
want to see this program reauthorized so that it can continue to save 
the lives of those who keep our communities safe. There is no dispute 
that the Bulletproof Vest Partnership program saves lives. In testimony 
before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 2012, the Government 
Accountability Office noted that since 1987, bulletproof vests have 
saved the lives of more than 3,000 law enforcement officers. I am 
disappointed we can't all come together to promote the safety of our 
Nation's law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every 
day to ensure our safety. It is our duty to support them and I call on 
all senators to stand with them and pass this important legislation.
  Madam President, I remember walking down the street in a town in 
Colorado and a police officer in uniform walked up to me and asked: Are 
you Senator Leahy? I said: I am. He tapped his chest, and you could 
hear the thunk, thunk of the bulletproof vest, and he said: I want to 
thank you, and I want to thank Senator Campbell. That is all he said. I 
was choked up listening to him.
  The Judiciary Committee also reported the National Blue Alert Act. 
This is a bipartisan bill. It passed the House of Representatives by an 
overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats. The National Blue 
Alert Act would create a national alert system to notify all State and 
Federal law

[[Page 2490]]

enforcement agencies with critical information when an officer is 
injured or killed in the line of duty. I am a proud cosponsor of it. It 
is sponsored by Senator Cardin and Senator Graham, a key Democrat and 
Republican. This bill would help apprehend a fugitive suspected of 
seriously injuring or killing a law enforcement officer and who is 
fleeing through multiple jurisdictions. It defies common sense that any 
senator would object to this legislation, which contains no fiscal 
authorization and is universally supported by law enforcement leaders 
across the country.
  In recent weeks, some Senators have expressed concern for the safety 
of law enforcement officers in the context of the Senate confirmation 
process. I do not question that these Senators are as concerned as I am 
about the safety of law enforcement officers, but I invite those who 
have expressed concern before the cameras for the well-being of law 
enforcement officers to come here and support the two bills I have 
discussed today and end the needless obstruction of this proven 
commonsense legislation. Do your press conferences, if you want. Say 
you are in favor of law enforcement. Who is going to be against law 
enforcement? But then prove it. Let us get these passed.
  I am proud that every Democratic member has supported it, and most 
Republicans do. Those few who are opposed, let us vote. In the coming 
weeks, as the Senate moves closer to recognizing our Nation's fallen 
law enforcement officers during National Police Week in May, I intend 
to come to the floor to seek unanimous consent to pass these long-
stalled bills. If Senators want to oppose them, fine, vote against 
them, but they ought to be willing to join me on the floor and explain 
those objections to the thousands of law enforcement officers and 
families who will soon gather in Washington to honor those who have 
made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their fellow citizens.
  Our law enforcement officers risk their lives every day to keep us 
safe. They deserve a Congress that does more than just talk about their 
service. They deserve protection.
  One of the saddest days I ever spent as State's attorney was going to 
the funeral of a police officer killed in the line of duty. It was a 
snowy day in Vermont. The snow was falling gently from the sky, and 
there were several miles of police cars--their blue lights reflected 
against the white snow. Such a peaceful scene--but not for the family 
of that police officer. I said to myself that I would do everything I 
could to protect them, and I appreciate those Republicans and Democrats 
who have joined me on this. We cannot bring back a fallen officer but 
we can and we must work together to protect the next one who may come 
under fire. I call on friends from across the aisle to join all the 
rest of us, and your fellow Republicans who have already joined, to 
protect law enforcement officers. Let us immediately reauthorize the 
Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act, and let us pass Senator Cardin 
and Senator Graham's National Blue Alert Act.
  We have many--I know in my office--who have worked on this. I will 
mention Matt Virkstis, whose background is at the Vermont Law School, 
that some in this body are well aware of, such as our distinguished 
Senate Parliamentarian. But I also appreciate all those police 
officers--and I have no idea what their politics are--who come in to 
say thank you to those of us who have supported the Bulletproof Vest 
Partnership program. It is such an easy thing to do. It should be 
noncontroversial. Let us get back to the days where, when we have 
something noncontroversial, we just pass it. Together we can honor the 
service of those who keep us safe.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I see my dear friend is here, so I will not suggest the absence of a 
quorum. I yield the floor, and I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.


                          The Debt and Deficit

  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I returned to the Senate in 2011 to 
tackle what I believed to be the greatest challenge facing our country, 
and I have devoted much of my first 3 years in this returned term on 
working to achieve a debt reduction agreement that would put our Nation 
on a path to fiscal health and fiscal responsibility.
  I have been involved in discussions for endless hours and days and 
months with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--Republicans and 
Democrats--with the administration and with outside groups over trying 
to put together a long-term deficit and debt reduction plan that will 
put us on the path to fiscal health, to finding a way forward to deal 
with our ever mounting debt.
  I am committed to working with my colleagues and the administration 
on this issue because I believe, ultimately, the most important thing 
we can do for the future of our country, for future generations--the 
most important legacy we can leave during our term of service here--is 
to solve our Nation's fiscal crisis.
  Recently, we have heard relatively little about this. Despite efforts 
which have been ongoing for the last 4 to 6 years, we have not come to 
a resolution; we have not come to an agreement which puts us at the 
beginning of a path to resolve this problem. Yet each year it mounts. 
Our debt dramatically increases. We continue on deficit spending.
  Even though we have made a few efforts to reduce deficit spending to 
half of what it has been--at least for this coming year, based on the 
sequester and the implication of that--it is also clear that this is 
temporary. It is also clear that whether we reduce it in half or not, 
the other half still amounts to more than half a trillion dollars of 
excess spending, driving our debt higher and higher.
  I am privileged to serve as the senior Republican Senator on the 
Joint Economic Committee. We spend a fair amount of time looking at the 
projections for the future and how they ought to shape our actions here 
in the Congress, as well as how we should work with the administration 
in terms of dealing with this issue.
  The Congressional Budget Office is a nonpartisan group who deals with 
numbers, not with politics--at least they are not supposed to. They 
bring about their annual ``Budget and Economic Outlook,'' which was 
released today. Looking at it is shocking. Never has my conviction been 
stronger than today when I read this outlook which has just been 
released. It addresses issues important for all of us. I am going to 
talk about just the top 10. But if this is not a siren call to us to 
refocus our efforts on this issue, we are going to regret to the end of 
our lives not having taken action to begin the process of getting this 
country's fiscal health and responsibility back in order.
  Again, this is the Congressional Budget Office--a nonpartisan group 
established by this body to deal with numbers and give us facts and 
projections from economists who give us the opportunity then to look at 
how we shape policies.
  I was stunned by the CBO report, and I would like to share the 
shocking findings. I hope every Member of Congress will look at this. I 
am going to distribute it on behalf of the Joint Economic Committee so 
we have access to this. But it ought to send a shock wave through all 
of us, and it ought to provide us with the courage and the will to step 
up and do what I think we all know we need to do.
  Finding No. 1. The national debt has exploded over the last several 
years. Gross Federal debt in 2014 is projected to reach $17.7 trillion, 
which is a figure larger than our entire economy and an increase of 
over $7 trillion in just the last 5 years under this President.
  Point No. 2. CBO projects cumulative deficits from 2014-2023 to be $1 
trillion larger than last year's projection for the same time period.
  Last year was startling enough. Now we learn--after 1 year of 
sequestration, holding down spending, and speeches on this floor saying 
we are getting control of this, CBO comes along and says the cumulative 
deficits from 2014 to 2023 will be $1 trillion larger than they thought 
just last year. So while we are congratulating ourselves for holding 
down spending, we are told we are adding $1 trillion more than was 
projected and anticipated last year.

[[Page 2491]]

  Now we are dealing with the so-called Affordable Care Act--yet to be 
proven to be affordable. CBO says that ObamaCare will reduce the number 
of full-time workers by 2.3 million people through 2021. At a time when 
this was sold as a plan to put Americans back to work, as something 
that would reduce our deficit because we would get control of out-of-
control health care spending, we are told by the Congressional Budget 
Office that the number of full-time workers will decrease by 2.3 
million. This is a significant increase from the last estimate of 
800,000 during the same time period. So we have gone from an 800,000 
projection not that long ago to 2.3 million.
  Point No. 4. Mandatory spending--particularly our health and 
retirement security programs--is crowding out all other priorities. The 
Congressional Budget Office once again has said that as we look at our 
total budget, the mandatory spending continues to crowd out all other 
spending priorities.
  This figure stood out and stunned me because it is the first time I 
have seen such an extraordinary jump in the mandatory spending 
percentage of our total spending.
  On mandatory spending, CBO says interest on the debt is projected to 
consume 94 percent of all Federal revenues 10 years from now, squeezing 
out funding for all other priorities. Squeezing out? Eliminating. We 
are entering the season when interest groups from our State come with 
many creative and innovative ideas as to how they could better spend or 
spend more money on their particular programs.
  They come in and say, ``We are here to encourage you to increase 
spending for medical research at the National Institutes of Health'' 
or, ``We are here to have you understand how important scholarship 
grants, Pell grants, and others are for enrollment of students in our 
States'' or, ``We are here to talk about the need to improve our 
infrastructure, to pave our roads and fill potholes and build and 
repair and establish new infrastructure for the movement of water, 
sewage treatment.'' On and on it goes. We can go right down the list of 
literally hundreds of requests as to how tax dollars ought to be spent 
to better improve our States, to better improve our health, to better 
improve our education, to better improve a whole range of things, 
including support for national security.
  I have to look them in the eye and say: Every year we have a smaller 
pot of money percentage-wise of our budget to apply to all these 
discretionary spending programs which Congress has to approve every 
year.
  I say: I am really not here to argue about whether money for the 
National Institutes of Health is more important than money for 
education grants or money for infrastructure development or any other 
endeavor in which the Federal Government is involved.
  Every year all of these are going to be faced with less money to fund 
these programs. Some of them ought to receive less and some of them 
ought to be closed and the waste and fraud ought to be eliminated. 
Nevertheless, there are essential functions that need to be funded, and 
they won't be able to be funded adequately and will continue to shrink 
as the mandatory spending runs out of control.
  But to think that of all the revenue--all the tax dollars that come 
into the Treasury 10 years from now, 94 percent will be spent on 
programs we have no control over and won't be available for any of the 
things I mentioned and dozens--if not more--of programs. It is simply 
unsustainable. Ninety-four percent. Six percent left to provide for our 
national security and national defense, our institutes of health, 
education, infrastructure development, manufacturing innovation, 
research and development--you name it.
  CBO also said Social Security is in jeopardy. They project that 
Social Security ``will continue to run cash flow deficits every year 
during the next decade.'' And the disability insurance trust fund will 
be insolvent by 2017. That is 3 years away.
  Let me repeat that. The Congressional Budget Office said that at the 
current rate the Social Security disability insurance trust fund will 
be insolvent in 3 years.
  They also said mandatory spending on health care programs is 
exploding.
  We have heard it said on this floor and we have heard it mentioned in 
the State of the Union Address and by the administration numerous 
times, that we are getting control of our exploding health care costs 
through the Affordable Care Act. In 2013 the Federal Government spent 
$861 billion on Medicare, Medicaid, and other major health care 
programs. This year the collective cost is expected to reach $933 
billion and then nearly double by the year 2024 to $1.8 trillion. I 
don't call that getting control of our health care costs. Yet this 
mandatory spending part of our budget will continue to grow to the 
point where we simply have no money left for any other function of 
government.
  All this, of course, is based on interest rates and the assumption as 
to what they will be. CBO says interest on our debt is set to double. 
Annual interest payments on the national debt are estimated to more 
than double over the next 10 years from 1.3 percent of our gross 
domestic product in 2014 to 3.3 percent of GDP in 2024. And we know 
from the past that estimates of what will happen with interest rates 
will drive that rate higher, particularly as our fiscal crisis gets 
more desperate.
  Point No. 8. Again, the Congressional Budget Office says: We have a 
spending problem and not a taxing problem. Projected revenues will 
exceed the 40-year historical average of gross domestic product this 
year and outpace growth in our economy over the next 10 years.
  So they say the problem isn't too little revenue. That is going to 
continue to pour in here as we continue to raise taxes. But you can't 
raise taxes fast enough or adequate enough without, one, destroying our 
economy or limiting our economy, but, secondly, to keep pace with the 
spending, which will hit its projected average of 20.5 percent this 
year and over the next 10 years outpace economic growth to a greater 
degree.
  CBO notes that ``after 2024, the long-term trajectory of spending 
will drive up debt to nearly unprecedented levels.
  Let me repeat that. This is a quote from the Congressional Budget 
Office: ``After 2024, the long-term trajectory of spending will drive 
up debt to nearly unprecedented levels.''
  CBO suggests that such an upward path would ultimately be 
unsustainable.
  Point No. 9. Labor force participation will continue to decline over 
the next several years. CBO projects that labor participation will drop 
to 62.5 percent by the end of 2017, fueled in part by the mandates in 
the Affordable Care Act and negative impact on job creators as a 
result.
  Point No. 10. The Congressional Budget Office suggests that even 
these dire projections may be overly optimistic. CBO projects real 
economic growth of 3.1 percent, which is notably higher than private 
sector and IMF estimates of 2.4 percent to 2.8 percent. CBO says that 
it ``would probably trim its projection of GDP growth'' in 2014, based 
on late-2013 data. So the numbers we are dealing with today may be 
overly optimistic. As dire as this report is, it may be that we are 
underestimating the damage that will come from our inability to control 
spending and put us on a path to fiscal health.
  This isn't another siren alerting Washington to the stark reality of 
our country desperately needing a real debt reduction agreement; this 
is, a five-alarm fire. Our fiscal house is engulfed in flames. The 
question is, When are we, who have been given the responsibility by the 
people we represent, going to have the courage to stand and do 
something about this, to put out this fire?
  We cannot overlook the fact that our Nation is facing record deficits 
as far as the eye can see. We are careening on an unsustainable, 
unstable fiscal path. We need all hands on deck to address this now--
not tomorrow, not after the next election. How many times have we 
heard, after this next election, we need to dig down and roll up our 
sleeves and take on this challenge. We need to do this now because the 
threat is now.
  A credible, long-term plan to reduce our debt and put our country 
back on a path of fiscal health and economic

[[Page 2492]]

growth and opportunity is the only way we can preserve the America we 
enjoy today or have enjoyed in the past. It is the only way to preserve 
that for future generations. So I think we have a generational 
responsibility that is as important as any we have faced before.
  Many say our legacy rests on what we do here. Whether that is true, 
we certainly will be measured by what we do or what we don't do 
relative to this particular crisis. Again, this is not a Republican 
conservative standing and saying: This is how I see things. I am simply 
reciting how the entity we turn to, the Congressional Budget Office--a 
neutral body which just does the math and then draws conclusions from 
it--actually, we draw the conclusions; they put the numbers down. This 
is what the Congressional Budget Office has told us. These are stunning 
numbers, much more than any of us anticipated. I think there has been a 
little lull of us thinking: Well, we have things under control. We had 
sequester; that was kind of messy, but it did save some money. Now we 
have a budget. We are going forward and back to regular order.
  What is regular order? Regular order is continuing to spend more than 
a one-half trillion dollars more than we bring in, in revenue. Raising 
taxes, according to CBO, is not going to solve the problem; that just 
hinders economic growth.
  So those of us on both sides of this body who have worked to address 
these issues now, not later; those of us who have worked with the 
administration--and I was part of a small group working with the 
administration over a 7-month period of time with the President 
directly and with some of his top advisers to try to put something in 
place, as modest as it was or as it seemed to end up being--and we were 
not even able to complete that. That burden, that responsibility, that 
legacy rests on our shoulders. That duty rests on our shoulders, to 
acknowledge these facts, acknowledge these numbers, and to understand 
what impact it is going to have on the future of this country, our 
children and grandchildren, everybody's children and grandchildren, and 
perhaps even our generation.
  So I will be distributing this report from Republicans on the Joint 
Economic Committee. I am hoping our report sends out yet another alarm, 
and we will not simply rest on the fact that we have made a baby step 
here in terms of getting some control over our spending. But as we turn 
around--akin to a little grass fire over here that we put out across 
the street while the five-alarmer is burning away, blazing away, and we 
are saying we will deal with it later. We can't deal with it later. We 
must deal with it now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a 
colloquy with the Senator from Hawaii for up to 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                College Affordability and Innovation Act

  Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I am on the floor with my colleague 
Senator Schatz from Hawaii to talk about our recent introduction of a 
piece of legislation entitled ``The College Affordability and 
Innovation Act of 2014,'' which we introduced along with our good 
friends Senator Murray of Washington and Senator Sanders of Vermont.
  By way of framing the conversation we will have today, I wish to 
speak about one particular college that maybe paints a picture of the 
crisis we are in today with respect to the mounting cost that confronts 
kids and families when they want to get a college education and the 
variety of outcomes--the frankly surprising and often shocking variety 
of outcomes--that students are getting when they show up at the doors 
of institutions of education, particularly institutions of for-profit 
education. Corinthian College is a school in California--not a small 
one but a pretty big college. It has about 100 campuses in 25 different 
States. Let me give some statistics about Corinthian College. After 
about a year, over half of the students who enroll drop out. When they 
are finished with their education, whether it be to a degree or not, 
about one-third of all students who go to Corinthian default on their 
student loans. If 56 percent isn't a bad enough number in terms of 1-
year dropout rates, after 4 years, only 6 percent of all the kids who 
walk in through the doors of Corinthian College get a degree--6 percent 
of those kids.
  Affordability isn't an argument in favor of this school either. For a 
legal assistant degree, they charge $28,000, but down the street at a 
community college a person can get that same degree for $2,500. They 
have a 35-percent default rate, a 6-percent 4-year graduation rate, and 
degrees that can cost 14 times as much as comparable local schools.
  Guess what. The Federal Government rewards this school with $1.6 
billion in Federal aid every year and $500 million in Pell grant money 
every year. So this example, which frankly can be repeated over and 
over, especially in the for-profit world, speaks to the challenge we 
have.
  We have done a very credible job over the course of the last few 
years in keeping down the interest rate we charge students who want to 
take out loans to go to school. No one has worked harder on this issue 
inside this body and outside this body than the Presiding Officer. But 
we also have to have a concurrent conversation about the sticker price 
of college because it can't be enough that we are facilitating student 
borrowing; we actually have to try to engage in a real effort, using 
Federal leverage, for the first time perhaps in our history of Federal 
higher education policy, to push the cost of tuition down in the first 
place. That is what the College Affordability and Innovation Act seeks 
to do.
  As Senator Schatz will talk about, there aren't a lot of issues that 
are much more important to the middle class than the cost of higher 
education. We both know that. We have partnered on this piece of 
legislation in part because not only are we not that far away from the 
time in our lives when we were in college, but we are paying back our 
student loans and saving for our kids' education, so we get how much of 
an annual budget can be taken up in paying for both prior and saving 
for future college. So we attack this problem in two ways--and I will 
just briefly speak about the first way and then I think the Senator 
from Hawaii can speak a little bit about the second method.
  First, we think it is time for a little bit more innovation when it 
comes to the way in which college is structured. There is no magic to 
the fact that today one has to sit in a classroom for 4 years, taking a 
requisite amount of credits, in order to get a degree. There is a lot 
of interesting innovation happening out there where a small subset of 
schools are saying: Wait a second. Maybe there is a different way to do 
it.
  For instance, maybe we should award a degree based on the 
competencies a student gets, regardless of whether the student needs 2 
years or 3 years or 4 years to get that degree or, for instance, maybe 
we should give students who show up at their freshman year of school 
with prior learning more credit for that, whether they got that 
experience studying at a high school or in the work force or in the 
military. Some students don't have to start as a freshman; some 
students can start as a sophomore or a junior.
  Maybe it is a renewed effort to consolidate graduate programs with 
undergraduate programs. I think President Obama is right; one doesn't 
need 7 years to become a lawyer in this country. It doesn't make a lot 
of sense that one has to essentially spend 10 to 15 years in education 
and training to become a doctor. We can consolidate graduate and 
undergraduate programs.
  But whatever we do, we have to admit that one of the easiest ways to 
reduce the cost of a degree is to reduce the time it takes to get a 
degree. So the first part of our bill focuses on giving some grants to 
a small number of schools to build out the right way to do competency-
based degree programming or initiatives to give greater credit for

[[Page 2493]]

prior learning or consolidations of graduate and undergraduate degrees.
  We introduced this piece of legislation because we think it is time 
to start having a real conversation about what the Federal Government 
can do to control and lower the price of college education. It is 
breaking the bank for families. We can do something about it. If we 
didn't have any tools at our disposal, maybe this wouldn't be a 
worthwhile conversation, but we give out $140 billion in Federal aid 
every year, and it is about time we start demanding some accountability 
for that money, whether it is accountability for cost or accountability 
for quality. It doesn't make sense for taxpayers to be sending $1.6 
billion a year to a school with a 6-percent graduation rate, a 38-
percent loan default rate, and prices that are simply not competitive 
in the landscape of college education.
  I am pleased to be on the floor with my colleague Senator Schatz, and 
I am happy to turn the floor over to him.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Connecticut for 
his partnership on this legislation. He has been a real friend and a 
true partner. We are happy to have the support of Senator Murray from 
Washington as well as Senator Sanders. They have been working on this 
issue for a long time.
  This is the middle class issue of our time. It doesn't just belong to 
college-aged students; it belongs to all of us. Senator Murphy spoke 
about how important it is for those of us who have young children and 
are beginning the process of trying to save for our children's college 
education, but it also belongs to the grandparents' generation. So many 
people are thinking about whether they can help their kids to 
ameliorate their existing student loans or their grandkids to be able 
to afford college.
  As Senator Murphy mentioned, we spend almost $150 billion in some 
form or fashion on Federal financial aid for institutions of higher 
learning, and that is good. That is a matter of national strategy. That 
is about the American dream. That is about the premise that the 
President talked about in his State of the Union Address, which is that 
if people work hard and play by the rules, they can move up the 
economic ladder. Higher education is one of the best ways to do that. 
It always has been in the United States of America. But here is the 
problem. The Senator from Connecticut talked about an individual 
example, but let me give the aggregate data.
  Over the last 10 years, we have spent 20 percent more and we have 
gotten 25 percent less. We are spending 20 percent more and we are 
getting 25 percent less. That means that although our investment in 
higher education and theoretically in college affordability has 
increased, the net cost for students has gone up by 25 percent. We now 
have more than $1 trillion in student loan debt. It is the second 
largest source of debt, to mortgage interest, and it has now outpaced 
credit card debt.
  This is a real crisis not just on the consumer level but as a matter 
of economic strategy for our Nation, because to the degree and extent 
that young people or people who want retraining or people who want to 
get a culinary degree or become a master carpenter or who want to 
become an architect or a doctor start to evaluate higher education and 
decide it is not a good value anymore, that doesn't just impact their 
individual family or their individual community but it impacts our 
national economic strategy.
  College is no longer affordable to many people, and that is despite 
the fact that we are spending more in raw dollars and in inflation-
adjusted dollars than ever before.
  Senator Murphy talked about the innovation portion of this 
legislation. We also have an accountability portion of this 
legislation. Here is the basic premise: As an institution of higher 
education, if you are a for-profit, if you are a not-for-profit, or 
even if you are a public institution, it is not the Federal 
Government's job to determine what your mission may be. And certainly 
if you are a private for-profit, we are not here to dictate your 
organization's mission. But a for-profit institution has no special 
right to Federal funding. If you are going to receive billions of 
dollars in Federal subsidies, we think it is reasonable, as we endeavor 
to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, that we tie some reasonable 
public policy strings to those dollars.
  All we are saying is that we want institutions of higher learning--
and especially their leadership--to wake up every morning and not think 
first about profits, not think first about how they are going to market 
to find more customers, but to think about access and affordability. 
And what we are saying is that different institutions may have 
different missions. A community college has a different mission than a 
training institute, and a 4-year institution has a different mission 
than a graduate institution. That is all fine, and that is why we have 
established in this legislation an independent commission, comprised of 
experts, to determine what matrix of incentives and possible penalties 
would be appropriate for each institution.
  But here is the bottom line: We are spending more and getting less, 
and we are spending $150 billion. This system is not working, and we 
are pleased to have the support of several of our colleagues. We are 
going to be enlisting the support of many others.
  I am looking forward to continuing the conversation with the Senator 
from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. I thank Senator Schatz.
  Here is another statistic to think about: It was not so long ago that 
we ranked first in the Nation with respect to 25-year-olds to 35-year-
olds with college degrees, and that was not only a source of immense 
pride for this country but really the genesis of our economic 
greatness--that we turned out more college-educated young people than 
any other country in the world. In a very short period of time we 
slipped from 1st to not 2nd or 3rd or 4th but to 12th. We are now 12th 
in the world with respect to the number of 25- to 35-year-olds with 
college degrees.
  Part of the reason for that is that a lot of other countries have 
caught up to the United States. But the crisis in this country is no 
longer just a crisis of access. That was the buzzword for a long time, 
that we needed to increase access to college. We now have a crisis of 
completion in which millions of students are starting school and not 
finishing for a variety of reasons but largely because of the 
astronomical cost.
  Today the majority of students are not graduating in 6 years. So the 
issue about affordability is not just about attracting more kids into 
the doors of college--because I will tell you, as I am sure Senator 
Schatz does, I talk to a lot of kids who graduate high school and do 
not apply to schools in my State because they are scared off by the 
cost and they do not believe they are going to be able to put together 
the family resources to pay for it--but we also are losing a generation 
of workers because it is taking young people now 6, 7, 8 years to 
complete a degree, and often many of them are never completing that 
degree while still taking on loan after loan after loan and getting 
stuck in the worst possible situation whereby they have thousands of 
dollars in debt and no certificate to bring into the workforce.
  So our effort is an effort to address cost because we care about 
access, but it is also an effort to address cost because we care about 
completion, and that is one of the big problems we have in our system 
today.
  Mr. SCHATZ. I think the Senator is exactly right about that one. Let 
me give you some data. In 2011 only 38 percent of undergraduate 
students in a 4-year institution graduated on time. So when you think 
about the cost of college, you think about the per-year cost. But if it 
is taking 6 or 7 years, then the per-year cost is not as important as 
how realistic it is for you to finish on time. Just to be clear, those 
data could be skewed by the fact that there are part-time students and 
all the rest of it. That is not what we are talking about here. It is 
simply hard to finish on time.
  But there is hope on the horizon. For instance, the University of 
Hawaii has

[[Page 2494]]

undertaken a program called 15 to Finish. The basic idea is that 
students, especially in their freshman year, need to know that they 
need those 15 credits. They need to get help from their counselors so 
that by the time they are in their sophomore year, they are well on 
their way to completing their major of choice in the 4-year period of 
time.
  The challenge now is that given that legislatures have cut funding to 
institutions of higher learning--and as a result you have fewer 
counselors and fewer people to assist in the student services office--
oftentimes you do not get real counseling with respect to what you need 
until it is too late, and then you find that you are on a 5- or 6-year 
plan. Your family may not have made the financial arrangement that puts 
you in a position to be on the 5-year plan.
  From a revenue standpoint, if your mission as an institution--for-
profit or not-for-profit--is just to fill those seats and to generate 
those dollars, then that does not matter to you. But the challenge we 
have right now is that the institutions--the publicly traded ones--have 
pressures to generate profits. But even the not-for-profits and even 
the public institutions--the Universities of Hawaii and the 
Universities of Connecticut--have had their funding reduced by the 
legislatures. So their CFOs are trying to figure out new revenue 
streams, and as long as they can keep enrollment up, that enables them 
to go back to their legislature and say: We are in the black.
  What we are saying is that is not good enough. We are not asking you 
to be in the black. We certainly understand the need to be fiscally 
responsible. We certainly understand the need to generate tuition 
revenue. But here is the thing: The point of higher education is for 
students to be able to move up that economic ladder, and to the extent 
that not only is it not accomplishing that goal, but it is actually 
doing the opposite for some of our students, they end up with a 
mountain of debt and either no degree or a degree that they find does 
not make them employable in the marketplace. That is a national shame. 
That is why we have to address this issue.
  The good news is we believe we are spending a sufficient amount of 
money on the Federal level so we can effectuate these changes just by 
saying: If you want to receive Federal dollars for your institution of 
higher learning, then we are asking you to focus on access and 
affordability.
  I want to give one last piece of data because it actually shocked me, 
even as much as I have been working on this issue. The for-profit 
institutions comprise about 12 percent of the students and 30 percent 
of the Federal dollars. Madam President, 12 percent of the students and 
30 percent of the Federal dollars.
  So while there are institutions that are for-profit that are doing 
great work and there are not-for-profits and public institutions that 
have to do a lot better, let's call it like it is.
  One of the major challenges here is we have to wrap our arms around 
undue profits and publicly traded companies that are generating profits 
and spending Federal dollars on marketing to students and not providing 
very much in the way of value.
  Mr. MURPHY. Let's be clear as to what we are talking about here. We 
believe we are talking about a pretty light hand of accountability in 
the sense that we are really going after the true outliers. The Senator 
talked about the work happening at the University of Hawaii or the 
University of Connecticut. We do not imagine that any flagship 
university is going to run afoul of these accountability standards. I, 
frankly, do not believe many public universities at all are going to 
run afoul of these standards. We are really talking about the handful 
of outliers that have just absolutely abysmal retention rates, 
graduation rates, default rates, or tuition increase rates.
  We are also talking about, we think, a pretty nuanced process to try 
to bring those schools around before they lose eligibility for funding. 
Our bill says that if you are not meeting these standards, you have a 
pretty long period of time in which you would be on probation with no 
practical effects, in which you could set upon an action plan to 
improve your affordability or outcomes. Then if, after that period of 
time, you still were not hitting your benchmarks, then you lose 10 
percent of your Federal aid, then 20 percent, and then finally, in the 
fourth or fifth years, you would become ineligible. That is plenty of 
time for a university to correct. But if a school that is starting out 
with a 6-percent graduation rate cannot improve that over 5 years, why 
on Earth would we continue to send $1 billion to that school when it 
could be used for students who are attending schools that care a lot 
more about quality education?
  Mr. SCHATZ. I think the Senator is exactly right. We had the Senator 
from Indiana talking about debt and deficits and making sure we spend 
every Federal dollar intelligently. Right now, we are simply not 
spending this money in the most efficient and efficacious way possible. 
That is what this legislation is about.
  Senator Murphy and I talked about how it might have been a little 
more politically satisfying in the short run to put hard caps on 
college tuition and precipitous goals that would have been very easy 
for us to articulate. But the fact is, given that you have different 
institutions with different missions and you have great work being done 
at the community college level, at the certificate level, and at the 4-
year and at the graduate level, we wanted to account for the different 
missions, and we wanted to make sure we did not create the kind of 
incentive program that, for instance, would prevent an institution from 
wanting to take a kid in who is from a lower income area and maybe, 
statistically speaking, is more likely to default on his or her loan.
  We really want, as a matter of policy, to focus on access. So it is 
access; it is affordability; it is the consistency with the mission. 
But here we are spending $150 billion--more than we ever have--on this 
national priority, and our results are worse than ever. So the status 
quo cannot stand, and I am really looking forward to working with my 
colleague on this important issue.
  Mr. MURPHY. As we wrap up our time on the floor, when my great-
grandfather came to this country, he knew that without a college 
education he could get a job pretty easily that would be able to put 
food on the table, have decent health care for his family, even provide 
him with a little bit of a pension that would take care of him. His 
son, my grandfather, followed him into that same profession, working 
for a ball bearing factory in New Britain, CT.
  While those jobs still exist, they are getting rarer and rarer. For 
the next generation to succeed, we know they need access to a college 
degree. They are not getting that access to completion because we have 
been woefully inadequate in using the tools at our disposal at the 
Federal level to try to put pressure on colleges to deliver on both 
affordability and outcome.
  We hope the introduction of the College Affordability and Innovation 
Act will allow us to open a new front in the debate on higher education 
to promote the idea of reducing the sticker price of college.
  I thank my colleague for joining me, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
about 15 minutes, perhaps as many as 17 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I come to the floor today for the 
57th consecutive week that the Senate has been in session to urge my 
colleagues to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our 
atmosphere and oceans.
  I have described Congress as surrounded by a barricade of lies. Today 
I will be more specific. There is not just lying going on about climate 
change; there is a whole carefully built apparatus of lies. This 
apparatus is big and artfully constructed, phony-baloney organizations 
designed to look and sound as if they are real, messages honed by

[[Page 2495]]

public relations experts to sound as if they are truthful, payroll 
scientists whom polluters can trot out when they need them, and the 
whole thing big and complicated enough that when you see its parts, you 
could be fooled into thinking it is not all the same beast. But it is, 
just like the mythological Hydra--many heads, same beast. So this 
speech is going to be about that beast.
  A recent research article published by Dr. Robert Brulle, a professor 
of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University, describes 
the beast.
  He joins a tradition of scholarship in this area, including work by 
Naomi Oreskes, Aaron McCright, and Riley Dunlap, each of whom has 
studied the forces behind climate denial; and David Rosner and Gerald 
Markowitz, who explored chemical and lead industry campaigns to deceive 
Americans about the dangers of those products.
  The intricate, interconnected propaganda web and funding network of 
this climate denial beast encompasses over 100 organizations, including 
industry trade associations, conservative think tanks, and plain old 
phony front groups for polluter interests. It has even co-opted media 
outlets, a phenomenon I chronicled in an earlier speech about the Wall 
Street Journal editorial page becoming a tool of polluter propaganda.
  So let's take a look at this climate denial beast, and how polluter 
money and dark money flows through its veins. This chart from Dr. 
Brulle's report shows the complex interconnection of the beast's major 
players. The green diamonds are the big funders, the Koch-affiliated 
foundations, the Scaife-affiliated foundations, the American Petroleum 
Institute, and so on.
  The blue circles are the who's-who of climate denial groups: the 
Heartland Institute--they are the group that compared folks concerned 
about climate change to the Unabomber, to give you a sense of what sort 
of people they are--the American Enterprise Institute, right here, the 
Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the 
Mercatus Center, to name just a few.
  The purpose of this network, to quote the report, is ``a deliberate 
and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the 
public's understanding of climate.''
  To misdirect and distort. The coordinated tactics of this network, 
the report shows, and I will quote again, ``span a wide range of 
activities, including political lobbying, contributions to political 
candidates, and a large number of communication and media efforts that 
aim at undermining climate science.''
  That is the beast. Big money flows through it, more than half a 
billion dollars. The Drexel University report chronicles that from 2003 
to 2010, 140 foundations made grants totaling $558 million to 91 
organizations that actively oppose climate action. It looks like a big 
beast to build just to propagate climate denial. But if you look at 
carbon emissions from fossil fuels, which in 2011 EPA estimated to be 
over 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide--so take 5.6 billion 
tons of carbon dioxide and then multiple that by the social cost of 
carbon, the economic and health costs that the polluters cause and 
inflict on the rest of society, which OMB recently set at $37 per 
metric of CO2--5.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted, 
$37 per metric ton of CO2 on the social cost of carbon. Just 
1 year's emissions will cost roughly 200 billion--with a B--dollars. So 
the stakes are pretty high for the polluters. If they were to pay for 
the harm they are causing, half a billion dollars through the beast, 
over 7 years, to get away with $200 billion of harm every year is a 
bargain.
  More than that, a lot of this machinery was already built. The beast 
did not spring up at once full grown, it grew over time--in industry-
fueled campaigns to obscure the dangers of cigarette smoke, of acid 
rain, of ozone depletion. Who knows. There are probably parts of it 
that go back to the benefits of requiring seat belts and airbags in 
cars.
  Looking back on the effects of these industry-funded campaigns of 
denial, we see that real people were hurt. But the denial machinery 
stalled action and made the wrongdoers money. It worked. So now the 
climate denial machine, the beast, is calling plays from the same 
playbook and even using many of the same front organizations.
  So who is behind this base? Unfortunately for the proponents of 
transparency, a large portion of the funding is not traceable. Much of 
the money fueling the beast is laundered through organizations which 
exist to conceal donor identity. Some of the organizations examined by 
Dr. Brulle get over 90 percent of their money from hidden sources. 
Indeed, more than one-third of these organizations get over 90 percent 
of their money from hidden sources. The biggest identity laundering 
shop is Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Indeed, it is by far the 
biggest source of funding in this web. These twin entities reported 
giving a combined $78 million to climate denier groups between 2003 and 
2010, and they refused to identify their funders.
  According to the Drexel report, the Donors Trust and Donors Capital 
funding operation does double duty. It is the ``central component'' and 
``predominant funder'' of the denier apparatus, and at the same time it 
is the ``black box'' that conceals the identity of contributors.
  Interestingly, anonymous funding through Donors Trust and Donors 
Capital fund has grown in tandem with disclosed funding from fossil 
fuel polluters declining, anonymous dollars up, disclosed dollars down. 
As we see here, Donors Trust and Donors Capital donations to the beast 
went from 3 percent of all foundation funding in 2003 to more than 23 
percent in 2010.
  At the same time, for example, the Koch brothers' affiliated 
foundations declined from 9 percent of all foundation funding in 2006 
down to 2 percent by 2010. The same is true for other polluter-backed 
foundations. The ExxonMobil Foundations wound down its disclosed 
funding of organizations in the climate denier network and basically 
zeroed out by 2007.
  It makes perfect sense. Why would the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil 
come under fire for obviously funding climate denial when Donors Trust 
and Donors Capital creates a mechanism for polluters to secretly fund 
the base?
  Plus, the phony-baloney front organizations within the beast can 
pretend they are not funded by polluter money. Everybody wins in this 
identity-laundering charade except the public, obviously, whom this 
elaborate construction is designed to fool.
  The product of the denial apparatus is a complex ruse to delegitimize 
the science that supports curbing carbon emissions, foisted on the 
American people with all of the financing and fantasy of a Hollywood 
blockbuster production. Here is Dr. Brulle describing what you see when 
you look behind the actors who appear in the media spotlight. I will 
quote.

       The roots of climate-change denial go deeper . . . Just as 
     in a theatrical show, there are stars in the spotlight. In 
     the drama of climate change, these are often prominent 
     contrarian scientists or conservative politicians. . . . 
     However, they are only the most visible and transparent parts 
     of a larger production. Supporting this effort are directors, 
     script writers, and, most certainly, a series of producers, 
     in the form of conservative foundations.

  Frankly, this apparatus is a disgrace. When the inevitable happens, 
and the impact of climate change really starts to hit home, people will 
want to know--Americans will want to know, people around the world will 
want to know why, why we did not take proper steps in time. It is not 
as if there is not enough scientific evidence for us to act. Why not? 
This denial operation, the beast, will then go down as one of our great 
American scandals, like Watergate or Teapot Dome, a deliberate, complex 
scheme of lies and propaganda that caused real harm to the American 
people and to our country, all so that a small group of people could 
make more money a little longer.
  The fact that one of our great political parties is in on the scheme 
will be to its lasting shame. There is an old hymn that says, ``Turn 
back O man, forswear thy foolish ways.'' It is time for our denier 
colleagues to turn back and forswear their foolish ways. If they

[[Page 2496]]

do not, there will be a day of reckoning and a harsh price to pay.
  Every day, more and more Americans realize the truth, and they 
increasingly want this Congress to wake up. They know climate change is 
real. As the President said in his State of the Union Address:

       The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.

  Sir Winston Churchill once said this:

       Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest 
     warnings, we have now entered upon a period of danger. . . . 
     The era of procrastination, of half-measures, soothing and 
     baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In 
     its place we are entering a period of consequences. . . . We 
     cannot avoid this period; we are in it now.

  Well, we are now in a period of consequences. We have got to break 
the back of the beast and break the barricade of blandishments and lies 
that the beast has built around Congress. This campaign of denial, this 
beast, is as poisonous to our democracy as carbon pollution is to our 
atmosphere and oceans. With money and lobbyists and threats, it has 
infiltrated itself in an unseemly influence in our government. For the 
sake of our democracy, for the sake of our future, for the sake of our 
honor, it is time to wake up.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                      International Trade Policies

  Mr. HATCH. I wish to take a few minutes to talk about our Nation's 
international trade policies. Specifically, I wish to discuss efforts 
to renew trade promotion authority, or what we call TPA. The most 
recent authorization of TPA expired nearly 7 years ago. Since that 
time, Republicans have, by and large, expressed support for renewing 
it.
  In August 2010, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk testified that the 
Obama administration needed TPA to conclude ongoing trade negotiations. 
However, after that time, little was done to move the ball forward on 
renewing TPA. In September 2011, Minority Leader McConnell and I 
offered an amendment on the Senate floor to renew trade promotion 
authority for President Obama.
  Unfortunately, despite strong support from the Republican caucus, a 
number of Democratic Senators actively opposed our efforts, and it 
received virtually no Democratic support. As a result, our efforts 
failed.
  In March 2013, then-Acting USTR Marantis again expressed the 
administration's support for renewing TPA and pledged to work with 
Congress to get it done.
  In June 2013, United States Trade Representative Michael Froman, 
during testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, formally 
requested on behalf of President Obama that Congress renew TPA.
  Throughout most of 2013, I worked with Chairman Baucus and Chairman 
Camp of House Ways and Means to craft a bipartisan bill to renew TPA, 
one that could pass through both Houses and the Senate. We introduced 
our bill in January.
  Last week, in his State of the Union Address, President Obama asked 
Congress to pass TPA legislation so his administration could complete 
negotiations on two very ambitious and important trade agreements. 
While I thought President Obama could have spoken more forcefully on 
this matter, his call for TPA renewal was clear and unambiguous. Yet so 
far the call appears to be going unheeded--or should I say among 
Democrats in the Senate.
  Why is TPA so important, trade promotion authority? I think some 
additional context is necessary.
  The administration is currently in the midst of negotiations on the 
Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, an Asia-Pacific trade agreement that 
is currently being negotiated between the United States and 12 other 
countries, including some of the world's largest economies, such as 
Japan, Canada, and Mexico.
  The Asia-Pacific region represents more than 40 percent of the 
world's trade and, as a group, TPP countries represent the largest 
goods and services export market for our country, the United States of 
America.
  On the other side of the world, the United States is negotiating a 
bilateral trade agreement with the 28 countries of the European Union. 
This is called TTIP. The United States and the EU generate over half of 
the world's economic output. Total goods trade alone, however, between 
the United States and the EU amounts to over $1 trillion a year. 
Investment flows represent another $300 billion a year on top of that.
  Together, these two trade agreements have the potential to greatly 
expand access for U.S. products in the foreign markets around the 
world. Most importantly, they would help to grow our economy and create 
jobs at home.
  These two separate trade agreements and negotiations represent what 
is the most ambitious trade agenda in our Nation's history. While 
everyone knows that I am a pretty outspoken critic of the Obama 
administration, I believe the administration deserves credit on this 
front. But if these negotiations are going to succeed, Congress must 
approve TPA.
  Because of the unique structure of our government, our country needs 
TPA. Our trading partners will not put their best deal on the table 
unless they know the United States can deliver on what it promised.
  TPA empowers our trade negotiators to conclude agreements and 
provides a path for passage in Congress. That is why every President 
since FDR has sought trade promotion authority. No economically 
significant trade agreement has ever been negotiated by any 
administration and approved by Congress without it.
  Put simply, if Congress does not renew TPA, the TPP negotiations and 
the TTIP negotiations with the European Union will almost certainly 
fail. That is why it is so disconcerting to me to see how some of my 
colleagues across the aisle have responded to the President's call for 
TPA renewal. TPA is one of the few issues where both parties can and 
should be able to work together to achieve a common goal.
  I know that I, along with my Republican colleagues, stand ready and 
willing to work with the administration to approve TPA as soon as 
possible. I think I have a reputation of working across the aisle and 
bringing people together. This is one I want to bring people together 
on--and I shouldn't even have to argue about it, but I do.
  I believe the bipartisan bill Chairman Baucus and I recently 
introduced to renew TPA would receive strong bipartisan support in the 
Senate if it were allowed to come up for a vote. Indeed, I am confident 
that the vast majority of my colleagues would join me in supporting the 
bill, both Democrats and Republicans.
  The problem is Republicans are not in the majority in the Senate. It 
is the Democrats who control the agenda. Unfortunately, the President's 
call to renew TPA does not appear to be a priority for some of the 
Democrats, certainly the leadership of the Democrats.
  The question is, Will Senate Democrats work with the President on 
this issue? I don't know the answer to that question, but I have to say 
that things don't look very good to me. Instead of robust support for 
the President and his trade agenda, the response we have seen from some 
Democrats has ranged from awkward silence on TPA to outright hostility. 
Needless to say, I am extremely disappointed by this.
  The issue is fairly simple. If we want to grow our economy through 
trade, Congress must approve TPA and do so soon. The President can play 
a unique and key role. By forcefully advocating for TPA renewal, he can 
help turn some of the skeptics in his party around.
  Recently, the Financial Times published a powerful editorial which 
outlined the need for TPA and the role the President must play for TPA 
to succeed.
  According to the editorial:

       Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton pulled out all the 
     stops to push through approval of the controversial North 
     American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. He was 
     able to squeak through a narrow victory by deft lobbying of 
     lawmakers and a willingness to make a strong case for 
     globalization to the American public. Mr. Obama is lagging 
     behind his predecessor on both counts. The case for TTIP and 
     TPP are

[[Page 2497]]

     both strong. The time for Mr. Obama to make these arguments 
     has arrived. He has every incentive to succeed. Failure to 
     secure [TPA] would be a grievous blow to his presidency.

  I understand there are some powerful critical forces that leave some 
of my friends on the other side of the aisle to oppose international 
trade. However, let's be clear: If we fail to approve TPA, we will be 
doing our Nation and our economy a great disservice. International 
trade is good for our country. It is one of the few tools Congress has 
to grow our economy that does not add to the Federal deficit. As I 
mentioned, Senator Baucus and I, along with Chairman Camp, have 
negotiated and introduced a bipartisan, bicameral TPA bill. It is, in 
my opinion, the only TPA bill that stands a chance of getting passed in 
both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have a choice. They can 
either work with the Republicans to pass our bill and empower our 
country to complete these important trade agreements, or they can throw 
up more roadblocks and cast more uncertainty on the President's trade 
agenda.
  As I stated, Republicans stand ready to work with President Obama on 
these issues and to help these trade negotiations to succeed. For the 
sake of our country and our economy, I sincerely hope my Democratic 
colleagues and friends in the Senate are willing to do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, I come to the floor to discuss the 
recent report by the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, which 
contains updated estimates of the insurance coverage provisions of the 
Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.
  It was just on Sunday the President told Bill O'Reilly of Fox News--
in front of all America on Super Bowl Sunday--that his health care bill 
is working. Today, the Congressional Budget Office has changed that 
tune. We learned from the report that ObamaCare will now cost us $2 
trillion. People may recall President Obama told the country his bill 
would cost less than $1 trillion. We also learned that we are expected 
to lose--expected to lose--2.5 million full-time jobs over the next 10 
years. Finally, the CBO says exchange subsidies under the ACA will 
reduce incentives to work.
  Let me go over that again. President Obama told the country his bill 
would cost less than $1 trillion. Now the CBO says it will be $2 
trillion. We are expected to lose 2.5 million full-time jobs over next 
10 years. Finally, CBO says exchange subsidies under the ACA will 
reduce incentives to work.
  If this is working, what does ``broken'' mean to this President?
  As I am reading this report and accompanying reaction, the most 
recent updates sound hauntingly familiar. In fact, I believe this is 
something that I and my colleagues spoke about every day during the 
debate on health care reform. We questioned at that time whether the 
CBO estimates accurately reflected the impact of ObamaCare on the 
American people, which leads to why I am on the floor as of this 
evening. This is about accountability, folks.
  During the debate, we questioned whether the scoring done by the CBO 
was fraught with gimmicks or an unrealistic belief that Medicare would 
achieve significant savings in the future.
  I have serious concerns with the accuracy of the scoring done on 
ObamaCare and its portrayal of the impact of this legislation versus 
the stated benefits for the American people.
  We cannot keep doing this. There are peoples' lives at stake, 
peoples' lives that we are dealing with. The CBO projections during the 
health care reform debate seemed to significantly underestimate the 
negative impact of ObamaCare. Because of those projections, supporters 
were able to jam it through--one vote, everybody knows about that 
vote--and now the American people have to pick up the tab on the CBO's 
errors.
  I am calling for hearings in the Finance Committee, upon which I sit, 
to demand CBO come before the committee and explain to the Congress and 
the American people why and how its scores, which led to the passage of 
ObamaCare, did not tell the whole story. This is about accountability 
for past actions, and we must ask the question, the difficult question, 
an unfortunate question: Was this political? Were the books cooked?
  CBO needs to take the responsibility for the differences between 
their projections and the most recent updates just released as of this 
morning. We must have accurate estimates on the costs and benefits of 
the legislation so we can do our jobs. This shouldn't be about politics 
or gaming the system. This is about peoples' lives, and it is our 
responsibility to get that right. Let the hearings begin. Let the CBO 
provide answers. The CBO must answer this Congress and America.
  I yield back the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DONNELLY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________