[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2702-2713]
[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. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 298.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

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


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, at 5:30 p.m. there will be a rollcall vote 
on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1963.


        Measures Placed on the Calendar--H.R. 3590 and H.R. 3964

  Mr. REID. I am told there are two bills at the desk due for a second 
reading.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will read the bills by title for 
the second time.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 3590) to protect and enhance opportunities for 
     recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting, and for other 
     purposes.
       A bill (H.R. 3964) to address certain water-related 
     concerns in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley, and for other 
     purposes.

  Mr. REID. I object to any further proceedings with respect to these 
two bills.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard. The bills will be 
placed on the calendar.


             Restoring Retirement Pay to U.S. Armed Forces

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today the Senate will consider new 
legislation that would restore earned retirement pay to the men and 
women of our Armed Forces. The measure restores cost-of-living 
adjustments for all military retirees regardless of age, disability or 
employment status. Congress should protect veterans who put their lives 
on the line to protect our country.
  I appreciate very much Senators Pryor, Shaheen, Hagan, and Begich for 
their leadership on this issue. Although the provision reversed by this 
measure doesn't take effect until the end of next year, there is no 
reason to delay, and we should move forward with it. I hope Republicans 
will join Democrats to pass this bill without their usual partisan 
games.
  Unfortunately, the type of obstruction and delay I just referred to 
was on full display here last week. On Thursday, the Senate fell one 
vote short of restoring unemployment insurance for 1.7 million 
Americans who lost their jobs through absolutely no fault of their own. 
Every single Democratic Senator voted for this bill. A few reasonable 
Republicans--four, to be exact--voted with us to restore benefits that 
would boost our economy and provide a lifeline for out-of-work 
Americans. But we are still one Republican vote shy before we are able 
to do this for these people.
  It is so unfair. If someone loses their job today, they can apply for 
unemployment benefits and get them immediately. But if a person has 
been out of work for a long time at 57 years old and can't find a job, 
that person needs this, but they can't because of what the Republicans 
have done.
  When 1.7 million struggling Americans fall short of the rent, skip 
meals to save cash or turn down the thermostat on freezing days, they 
will know who to blame--41 Republican Senators. We only need one more 
Republican--a total of 5 out of 45--to step up and do what is right for 
these desperate people.
  We are not going to stop pushing to restore emergency unemployment 
insurance. In the weeks to come, we will vote again on this important 
issue and again if we need to. In the meantime I hope my colleagues 
across the aisle will think long and hard about their unsustainable 
position on this issue, a position that hurts middle-class families.


                              Minimum Wage

  In the weeks ahead the Senate will also consider legislation to give 
17 million minimum wage workers a much needed raise and our economy a 
much needed boost. No American working full time should live below the 
poverty line, but many of them do. So we are going to push to make the 
minimum wage a living wage and raise it to $10.10 an hour.
  To ensure this country's economic success, it is crucial that every 
American has an opportunity to succeed as well. When some people have 
to work two or three full-time jobs just to pay the rent and put food 
on the table, something is wrong.
  Minimum wage workers spend their paychecks in local stores, gas 
stations, and restaurants. That is why an increase in the minimum wage 
would create 85,000 new jobs.
  This increase is also key to ensuring every full-time worker has a 
shot at entering the middle class. Contrary to the common belief, 
raising the minimum wage isn't just about helping teenagers earn a 
little extra cash. Two-thirds of the people working for minimum wage 
are women. It is also about helping any woman, such as a 35-year-old 
woman earning half of her family's income and more than one-quarter of 
the workers who would benefit from a raise are supporting children.
  Last week Republicans voted against the interests of middle-class 
Americans doing their best to survive unemployment. When it comes time 
to consider Democrats' minimum wage proposal, I hope the Republicans 
will choose the right way, not the wrong way, as they have done so 
often. They should stand for middle-class families rather than resort 
to obstruction.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  I ask the Chair to announce the business of the day.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaine). Under the previous order 
leadership time is reserved.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1963.
  The Senator from Vermont.

[[Page 2703]]




                          NSA Security Breach

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the National Security Agency continues its 
indiscriminate collection of a massive number of phone records about 
Americans under section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. I have said over 
and over again that as a nation we have long needed to have the 
national conversation about bulk collection that is now underway, and 
the section 215 program should have been declassified long before it 
was.
  I wish to make very clear, as I have said before, I do not condone 
the way this or other highly classified programs were disclosed. I am 
deeply concerned about the potential damage to our intelligence-
gathering capabilities, our foreign relationships, and national 
security.
  I am also deeply concerned that one person with a security clearance 
can wreak this much havoc. According to the New York Times, Edward 
Snowden accomplished his heist of extraordinarily sensitive information 
about NSA activities with ``inexpensive and widely available 
software''; in other words, software that any one of us could get. He 
didn't even execute a particularly sophisticated breach. He did not, 
apparently, face a particularly complex technological challenge while 
removing these sensitive documents from the NSA trove. Yet he pulled 
off what the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper recently 
called ``the most massive and most damaging theft of intelligence in 
our history.''
  I continually ask the leaders of our intelligence community: What are 
you doing to stop this from happening again? I have learned that the 
NSA has devoted substantial resources to fixing the faults that allowed 
this to happen, has taken some steps to address them, and has 
identified a range of other actions that need to be taken. But one has 
to ask, especially in the wake of the Private Manning leaks, how could 
the NSA have allowed this to happen in the first place.
  I say this not to beat up on the NSA. I know we have highly 
dedicated, patriotic men and women working there, and I applaud them 
for their service to their country. But when I hear their leadership 
ask us to trust that they will keep our information safe and that we 
should have faith in its internal policies and procedures, one has to 
ask: Is this accurate?
  This is the same NSA that first told us that the section 215 program 
was essential to national security. They talked in speeches around the 
country that it thwarted dozens of plots. But then when they were asked 
questions in a congressional hearing specifically about it, that number 
went from in the fifties down to possibly one. The primary defense of 
the NSA's bulk collection program now appears to be the program is more 
of an insurance policy than anything else. But now even that new 
defense of the program has been called into question.
  The Washington Post has reported that under this program the NSA 
collects less than 30 percent of domestic phone records. The Wall 
Street Journal says the number is less than 20 percent. These estimates 
are consistent with the public copy of the President's Review Group 
report, which cautioned against placing too much value on this program 
as a tool to rule out a domestic connection to a terrorist plot; thus, 
the so-called insurance policy. The Review Group report tells us it is 
precisely because--although the program is unprecedented in scope--it 
still covers only a percentage of the total phone metadata held by 
service providers.
  It appears to this Senator that the intelligence community has 
defended its unprecedented, massive, and indiscriminate bulk collection 
by arguing that it needs the entire ``haystack'' in order for it to 
have an effective counterterrorism tool--and yet the American public 
now finds out they only have 20 to 30 percent of that so-called 
haystack.
  These revelations call even further into question the effectiveness 
of this program.
  Although the program is ongoing, some preliminary and positive 
changes are underway. Just last week, the Director of National 
Intelligence announced that the FISA Court has approved procedures 
under which the government will seek approval by a FISA Court judge 
before querying these phone records--absent a true, almost 
instantaneous kind of an emergency. The President has directed the 
Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to develop 
alternatives to the section 215 phone records program and report back 
to him at the end of next month. That is progress but only some 
progress. It is not enough. It is not going to be enough to just reform 
the government's bulk phone records collection program.
  The program, as expensive and extensive as it is, has not proven 
effective. But beyond that, it is not worth the massive intrusion on 
the privacy of the American people--of the good, law-abiding men and 
women in what is supposed to be the greatest democracy on Earth.
  Congress should shut it down. We should enact the bipartisan, 
bicameral USA FREEDOM Act. Then Congress has to examine carefully--and 
to the extent possible publicly--the security breach that led to these 
revelations in the first place.
  The Senate Judiciary Committee has had a number of hearings on this 
issue. We are going to continue working on these issues at a hearing 
this week with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board--yet 
another voice concluding that the section 215 program should not 
continue. If the NSA is to regain the trust of the American people, it 
has to spend less time collecting data on innocent Americans and more 
time keeping our Nation's secrets safe.
  I yield the floor.
  I will suggest the absence of a quorum. Is time being divided?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time is not currently being divided.
  Mr. LEAHY. 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. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               Retirement

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to talk today about a subject that 
has immense implications for America's future. In fact, I often talk 
about it as being perhaps the darkest cloud hanging over the future 
economic well-being of our country that no one ever talks about. It has 
been hugely ignored; that is, the issue of retirement income and what 
people are going to do when they retire in the future.
  I have been focused on this for several years. My HELP Committee has, 
over the last 2 or 3 years, had 10 hearings on this issue. We have met 
with a lot of the investment community and retirement benefits 
community to take a look at what is happening and to see whether we can 
have a better system for retirement than we have.
  Right now young people who are working to pay off student loan debt, 
maybe buy a new home, put a little money away for their own kids' 
education later on or people who are close to retirement, a nurse who 
has been working all her life, someone maybe worked in a small business 
and they are 60 years old, are wondering what are they going to do when 
they retire. They are worried they will not have enough money to live 
on.
  Quite frankly, they are very right to be worried. If you looked at 
the future work force of America today and you said: What is it this 
group of people will need to live on when they retire and what they 
have saved for retirement, there is a deficit. They do not have enough 
saved on which to retire.
  How big is that deficit? Calculations in our hearings show it is 
about $6.6 trillion. That is a big chunk of change. That is a huge 
hole. So when you look at what is happening, half of Americans--half of 
Americans--have less than $10,000 in savings.
  As I talk and as we look at this, we have to remember that retirement 
has always been thought of as a three-legged stool. One leg is a 
pension; one

[[Page 2704]]

leg is savings; the other leg is Social Security. So what is happening 
now is that on the retirement pension system, the savings systems are 
falling down. Social Security is still strong. I will have more to say 
about that. But what we have to do is look at how much people have in 
savings. Half of all Americans who are working today have less than 
$10,000 in savings--less than $10,000 in savings.
  When I came to the Congress in the 1970s, one out of every two 
workers had a pension. That means they had a pension that would pay 
them a monthly income until the day they died. And if they died, their 
spouse would get it. One out of every two. Today it is one in every 
five and it is getting worse. Only one in five.
  By the way, this has fallen by 30 percent in just two decades. Again, 
75 million people have no retirement plan at all. Seventy-five million 
people--that is about half of the workforce in America--have no 
workplace retirement plan at all--nothing, no 401(k), no IRAs, no 
defined benefit program. Nothing. Half, one out of every two, have 
nothing whatsoever.
  Unfortunately, instead of trying to improve the pension system and 
lift up everyone, there are too many people out there trying to score 
political points by scapegoating public servants for State and local 
budget shortfalls. Pensions are not the cause of State fiscal problems, 
and retired public servants are not living high on the hog on the 
taxpayer's dime. These are simply malicious myths being spread by 
people who I think have two objectives: one, to discredit public sector 
unions; secondly, to dismantle the pension system.
  Pensions are one of the best ways to ensure that middle-class people 
can have a secure retirement because they provide a guaranteed source 
of income that a person can count on for as long as he or she lives.
  Can the current pension system be improved? I believe so. But there 
is no reason to abandon a system that has worked for millions of 
people.
  The sad truth is that these days the vast majority of employees with 
any retirement plan at all have a 401(k). Again, I am not here to bad-
mouth 401(k)s. They can be a very good way to help people put some 
money aside to supplement their pension. But 401(k)s were never 
intended to replace pensions. It was to be that other leg of the stool, 
the savings part.
  Again, we know that savings rates are too low. As I said, most people 
have less than $10,000. There is no simple way for people to convert 
their savings into a stream of retirement income that they cannot 
outlive. The promise people made about 401(k)s was that more businesses 
would start them, more people would participate.
  Well, I was here when 401(k)s started. It sounded like a good idea, 
an easy way for people to save. But decades after the start of 401(k)s, 
the number of workers participating in these plans has stayed flat. 
According to Monique Morrissey of the Economic Policy Institute, in 
1989, participation in 401(k)s was at 46 percent of the workforce. In 
2010, it was 45 percent. So it has stayed flat.
  We have seen some modest increases in savings the last few years. 
That is what people told me at our hearings. We have seen some modest 
increases. I said: Really? Okay, let's take a look at that. This kind 
of surprised me, that we had an uptick in savings. But then we looked 
at the data. What does it show? It shows who is saving what. The top 
10-percent income earners, the top 10 percent of income earners in 
America have 100 times more saved for retirement than the median 
household. So we charted it out. You see back here in 1989, well, they 
were not too far apart. Here is the top 10 percent. The top 10 percent 
now has nearly $239,000 set aside for retirement; the median household, 
$2,500. You say savings have gone up. Yes, look who has saved--the top 
10 percent, those of us who work here. So $239,000 as opposed to $2,500 
for the average family.
  I might also add that buried in this, buried in this chart, is an 
unacceptable amount of racial and gender inequality in this system. The 
National Institute on Retirement Security recently found that Black, 
Asian, and Latino workers have significantly less access to retirement 
plans on the job than White Americans, especially in the private 
sector. As a result, the vast majority of working-age households headed 
by people of color have little or no retirement savings. For those with 
a retirement plan, the average account balances for Black and Latino 
households are less than one-fifth that of White households. So if I am 
not mistaken, one-fifth of $2,500 would be about 500 bucks. So buried 
in this--keep in mind--is unequal gender and racial inequality.
  Addressing the issue of retirement security again would be 
particularly beneficial to women. We all know about the income gap 
between men and women. But what a lot of people do not realize is the 
gap worsens after retirement. When you think about it, you can 
understand that. In 2011, the median annual income of older women; that 
is, over retirement age--keep this in mind, the median annual income 
was $14,225. The median annual income of that same core of older men 
was $24,794.
  Why is that? Think about it. Unequal pay during their working years. 
That means women have less opportunity to save. They may take some time 
off during their working years to start a family. They have less time 
to save. Additionally, women tend to be concentrated in jobs that do 
not traditionally offer retirement plans. It has been said many times 
that women save more money than men. Well, yes, they have higher rates, 
but they are starting from a very low point. So women still lag behind 
men when it comes to total retirement savings.
  That sort of sets the stage for our committee and for me to introduce 
the USA Retirement Funds Act, S. 1979--if anybody wants to write down 
the number of the bill. It is a new retirement program, and I am going 
to explain, basically, how it operates.
  The USA retirement means it is universal, it is secure, and it is 
adaptable. That is what the USA stands for. It would tackle the 
retirement crisis head-on by ensuring that the 75 million people--
remember my earlier chart--without a workplace retirement plan would 
have the opportunity to earn a safe and secure pension--universal, 
secure, and adaptable.
  The concept is very simple. Employers who don't offer a pension or a 
well-designed 401(k) would automatically enroll their employees in this 
retirement fund. If an employee wanted to opt out, he or she could. No 
one would be forced to participate. But by making the system opt out 
instead of opt in, we get millions more people participating.
  Employer and employee contributions would go into a fund that would 
be managed by a board of trustees. When a participant retires, the fund 
would provide the retiree with a monthly benefit as long as he or she 
lives, and if that person died it would go on to their spouse.
  Over time, as people contribute, they would earn a real retirement 
benefit that will be a better bang for their buck than what they could 
have gotten on their own. That is because these funds would spread 
retirement risk over large groups of participants.
  A recent report by David Madland at the Center for American Progress 
found that the USA Retirement Fund, with risk pooling and professional 
management, would make retirement much more affordable for working 
families. In fact, it would cut in half the amount people would need to 
save over the present system of defined contribution 401(k)s.
  So it is basically universal access; everybody is in. You could work 
for an employer--with three employees, four employees, two employees--
or you could be self-employed and have universal access.
  You would get monthly benefits for life. You wouldn't be borrowing 
against it. You wouldn't be taking out a lump sum. It would be there, 
and you would get a monthly benefit for life with a spousal survival.
  ``Professionally managed'' means that it would be managed by a board 
of trustees who would have a fiduciary responsibility to this pool to 
invest it wisely--fiduciary responsibility. That

[[Page 2705]]

relieves the individual from trying to figure our out what is the best 
place to put my little, meager amount of savings.
  You wouldn't have to consider whether or not you should follow Uncle 
Fred's advice about this stock that he has that is going to make you a 
lot of money in the future or Mr. Ponzi's--what was the Ponzi guy's 
name again--where all you had to do was give him a lot of money or 
maybe Bernie Madoff in later years. You wouldn't have to worry about 
that. This would be a professional board that would have a fiduciary 
responsibility. As I said, it would have lower costs--about 50 percent.
  In other words, what this means is if you were 35 years old and 
working, and you figured under your 401(k) you would need $2 million by 
the time you retired in order to live out your life and have a decent 
retirement income, if you were involved in this program, you would only 
need $1 million because the costs would be that much less.
  A big portion of that $2 million goes into fees during the life of 
that 401(k). So that is the big savings. USA retirement, that is for 
the personnel.
  Let's take a look at what it means for the business, the business 
community itself. These are the benefits to the business. It is easy to 
offer. They don't have to set up a plan. For a small mom-and-pop 
business, if they are filling out FICA taxes anyway, they just have a 
separate line for this, send it off, and they haven't anything else to 
do. They don't have to manage it--no risks and no fiduciary 
responsibility as an employer, none whatsoever--and they get quality 
benefits.
  This is what this means. A lot of employers want to make sure their 
employees have a good retirement benefit because as they get older they 
earn more. Let's face it, you would like to have people retire so you 
could bring younger people into the workforce.
  If you have people now who can't retire because they don't have 
enough money, they stay working. If you have a good, quality benefit, 
when people get to the age of retirement, basically they can retire 
now; they have their retirement set up. It means for an employer, for a 
business, they get the kind of turnover they need to bring in new, 
younger workers.
  As I said earlier, it is professionally run. The company has no 
fiduciary responsibility whatsoever such as they do under a defined 
benefit program. They don't have to manage it, don't have to do 
anything and, as I said, no risk to the business whatsoever.
  I would add also that under the bill employers could voluntarily 
contribute to the program. They don't have to, but they could 
voluntarily contribute.
  If you are signing up one of your workers at 6 percent, the employer 
could say: I want to have a good workforce; I want to hire really good 
people. I have good people, and I want to keep them, but I will tell 
you what, I will kick in 2 percent, 3 percent or 2.5 percent.
  They can kick in whatever they want as a management tool, maybe even 
as a recruitment tool to recruit very good workers. Again, it is a good 
recruitment and management tool for businesses.
  For the economy in general, this would be good. This is what a lot of 
people don't consider. By bringing more people into this retirement 
system, there are going to be more savings, and there are going to be 
savings that are long-term type savings.
  It is what we call patient capital. In other words, with the capital 
that comes into these big retirement pools, they don't need to earn and 
think about the quarterly bottom line, but they do think about the long 
term.
  Haven't we spent a lot of time in this body and around the country 
talking about the need for infrastructure, long-term projects for this 
country, energy systems, electrical systems, roads, bridges, sewers, 
all of these. Plus, we need long-term capital for the new entrepreneurs 
starting these new businesses that may take a long time for them to 
return some capital, but they need that access to that long-term 
patient capital that something like this could provide for them.
  As I said, it creates a lot of jobs. Again, because of this ability 
to invest over the long term, they are going to be able to start 
creating more jobs in our country.
  I want to emphasize two more key points before I yield the floor.
  First, USA Retirement Funds would not replace pensions or 401(k)s. 
Employers could and should continue to offer these plans at the 
workplace. But what this would do is give people without access to a 
quality employer-provided plan the opportunity to earn a retirement 
benefit.
  The second point I want to make is that USA Retirement Funds isn't a 
new government program. There have already been some stories written 
about this in the paper.
  Someone said: Harkin has come up with a new government program.
  No, I haven't. This is not a government program. This is a 21st 
century retirement plan run entirely by the private sector, just like 
pensions and 401(k)s.
  Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about that third leg of 
the stool, and that is Social Security. We have to improve the most 
efficient, most effective retirement program we have, and that is 
Social Security. Last year, I, along with others, introduced a bill, S. 
567--a nice, easy number to remember--to expand the benefits by $65 a 
month. That means that if you are at the lower end of the income scale 
when you retire, your replacement rate will be a little bit better. You 
get $65 a month.
  For some at the higher end, $65 a month is not that big of a deal, 
but it sure helps those at the bottom end. So it would increase that by 
$65, and it would index the living adjustment so you would have 
improved cost-of-living adjustment in the future because it would look 
at the CPI--the cost-of-living for elderly. I look at that and adjust 
it for that.
  Secondly, it would strengthen the trust fund by lifting the cap on 
the payroll tax. If we do all of that, we strengthen Social Security, 
we actually increase the benefit a little bit, and it extends the life 
to 2050. So it makes Social Security stronger for future beneficiaries.
  By improving the private retirement system, bolstering Social 
Security, we can do a lot to take away that dark cloud. We can tell 
people, assure people, that they will be able to save and have a 
retirement benefit, an annuity, every month, as long as they live.
  Secondly, we make it easier for businesses to set it up. Third, it 
creates jobs in our economy by long-term types of investment. During 
this time of economic insecurity, it is more important than ever that 
working people have the opportunity to prepare for retirement.
  I urge my colleagues to help rebuild the pension system in this 
country by supporting the USA Retirement Funds Act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Fischer and Mr. King pertaining to the 
introduction of S. 2007 are located in today's Record under 
``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we find ourselves today considering 
legislation to fix a problem that Congress and the President created 
only 2 short months ago. We knew from the Ryan-Murray spending deal 
that it cut military pensions. Yet this Senate passed the bill anyway, 
over my objections and those of many of my Republican colleagues. 
Congressional Democrats insisted on keeping the military pension cuts 
in the Ryan-Murray deal. They would not accept change. Almost every 
Democrat supported Majority Leader Reid and rejected amendments to stop 
the cuts and voted for the final passage. So they ignored the warnings 
I and others issued, and virtually every Senate Democrat voted to keep 
these cuts rather than close clear Federal tax loopholes that allow 
illegal aliens to gain money improperly.
  So what happens? Constituents back home were outraged. Senate 
Democrats are trying to claim credit for fixing the

[[Page 2706]]

very problem they created--which, in itself, is not bad, but 
unfortunately, instead of doing this in a good-faith way consistent 
with our spending priorities and limitations under the Murray-Ryan 
bill, the Pryor bill before us now authorizes more spending, unpaid 
for, in direct violation of the spending limits set out in the Ryan-
Murray legislation passed just a few weeks ago.
  So we passed legislation, we set limits on spending, and here we are 
blithely walking in again. I am at a loss to see why my colleagues 
continue to resist replacing these cuts--cuts to veterans who have 
earned it, who have been drawing these benefits, and not replacing them 
by closing the tax credit loophole for illegal immigrants.
  Closing of this loophole was recommended by the inspector general of 
President Obama's own Treasury Department. So why are there those 
determined to protect billions of dollars in tax fraud and allow it to 
continue? Would it not be in our national interest to close this 
loophole, restore these pensions for our veterans, and maintain the 
savings we promised to the American people? Indeed, the savings would 
more than pay for the replacement of the veteran retirement provision, 
and it would help reduce our huge deficits.
  Let's review how we got here.
  In August of 2011, as we approached the statutory borrowing limit--
the debt ceiling--Congress passed a Budget Control Act, which Congress 
agreed to immediately increase the debt limit by $2.1 trillion, but 
Congress promised to reduce the projected growth of spending from $10 
trillion over the next 10 years to $8 trillion over the next 10 years. 
This was said to be a spending cut but was really a reduction in the 
growth of spending.
  So this 2011 legislation, passed into law and signed by the 
President, promised to reduce the growth of spending by $2.1 trillion. 
I did not support this act. I thought we could have done more, and 
hoped to do more. Of course, I recognized it applied to our military in 
a disproportionate way--although we hoped it would ultimately be 
avoided, but it was not.
  Once this legislation was passed, I felt--and I think most of us in 
Congress believed--we should honor the agreement we made to the 
American people. But almost immediately, many of our colleagues began 
saying even those spending reductions were too much. At every turn, the 
Senate passed or attempted to pass legislation which broke the spending 
caps.
  I raised a number of budget objections. I am the ranking member on 
the Senate Budget Committee, and when spending violates the spending 
limits we have, I have on a number of occasions raised objections, or 
budget points of order. It takes 60 votes to spend more than the budget 
allows us to spend, so it gives us a check on spending.
  Many of my objections were sustained, almost entirely with Republican 
votes, but in plain fact our colleagues were unwilling to save the 
money they promised the American people. We agreed to save a certain 
amount of money--we promised to do so. But when things get tight and 
their political groups want more, we tend to spend more, make excuses, 
and violate the budget. That, of course, is why we are in this deep, 
adverse financial situation.
  Chairman Murray and Chairman Ryan entered into a negotiation to ease 
the Budget Control Act spending cuts--the sequester. They unveiled a 
plan which increased spending above the BCA level in exchange for 
increased revenues and some spending cuts. They said the new increases 
in spending were paid for. The increases in spending happened in 2 
years, promised cuts were over a long period of time in the future, but 
it did in fact balance as they described it at the time.
  However, immediately my staff alerted me to a provision in the bill 
which proposed cutting military retirement benefits by $6 billion--not 
for future recipients but for current soldiers and retirees. Some 
servicemembers would see a lifetime reduction of $120,000 or more, some 
$72,000. This is a cost-of-living reduction of more than 60 percent for 
some people. I felt this was unacceptable. There are a lot of other 
things we ought to be cutting before we cut the promised earned 
retirement benefits to our veterans who serve 20 years. Only those who 
have a 20-year service record qualify for this. I thought this was 
unacceptable and pointed it out.
  Of course, no one seems to know where this provision came from. The 
Department of Defense said they weren't consulted. This is not 
surprising, since the legislation was produced by a secret few behind 
closed doors--something I do not think is a good process. The 
traditional legislative conference committee process was abandoned.
  The good news is it was caught before it came to the floor, and when 
the bill came up, some of us offered proposals to fix this problem 
while staying within the spending caps. So as to not cut veterans $6 
billion we needed to find some other place to cut $6 billion. This 
would at least have kept the promises of the bill sponsors of Ryan-
Murray.
  Military retirement cuts were a significant part of pay for this new 
spending. In that spirit, I proposed what I thought was a reasonable 
alternative. For over 2 years now, I have been trying to close a 
massive tax loophole.
  In July of 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department, part of President 
Obama's administration, reported that illegal aliens received more than 
$4 billion in free child tax credits in just 2010 alone. In some cases, 
households received tens of thousands of dollars year after year, in 
many cases claiming as dependents people who don't even live in the 
United States. A number of these filers had no tax liability--that is, 
they were paying no tax at all--but they were getting tax credit checks 
from the Federal Government. The inspector general of the Treasury 
Department asked Congress to act and close this clear abuse. And it is 
dramatic, really.
  What we found, in 2005, is credits claimed under this provision 
amounted to $924 million. But the inspector general reported by 2010, 
it was $4.2 billion--it has gone up four times in 5 year or 6 years--
surging, as word got out that all you had to do was make these claims, 
nobody checks that the children were in the United States or if there 
were children at all. There is no way to check.
  The inspector general of the Treasury Department has made at least 
three reports on this subject, and in its 2009 report pointed out the 
problems we face.
  And it is not accurate to say that we somehow want to abuse children 
and deny them support. We are talking about plain fraud and abuse in 
this system.
  This is what the inspector general said in March of 2009:

       Legislation should be considered to require a Social 
     Security Number in order to be eligible for the Additional 
     Child Tax Credit--

  That is basically the amendment I offered, and what the amendment 
Senator Ayotte is now offering and I cosponsored with her would do--
just require you to have a Social Security number before you claim a 
big check from the U.S. Treasury. This would be consistent with the 
requirements, the IG said, for the earned income tax credit. Americans 
who file an earned income tax credit have to have a Social Security 
number. This is for people who work and receive a low income.
  The Inspector General goes on:

       [A]s it now stands, the payment of Federal funds through 
     this tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive 
     for aliens to enter, reside, and work in the U.S. without 
     authorization . . .

  By the way, he said, this would appear to be an additional incentive 
for people to illegally enter the country, because you can come in 
unlawfully here and claim credit for children who may not even exist. 
And, if they do, they might be in a foreign country. It is now running 
at the rate of $4 billion-plus a year.
  Remember, over 10 years the cost of the cuts to veterans is $6 
billion. Closing this loophole would more than pay for this.
  The inspector general goes on to say:

       As far back as 2007, [IRS] employees responsible for 
     resolving errors on tax returns, including those filed by 
     individuals with an

[[Page 2707]]

     ITIN, raised concerns to IRS management about its policies 
     for handling errors in ITIN tax returns. These employees 
     stated that management did not take any subsequent action to 
     address their concerns. A formal complaint was subsequently 
     filed with the TIGTA.

  In its 2009 report in December, some 6 or 9 months later, it goes on 
to say:

       The volumes of ITINs is growing, increasing the risk that 
     fraudulent tax returns using ITINs could be submitted.
       ITINs were issued without sufficient support documentation. 
     A statistical sample of 658 forms . . . selected from 1.5 
     million application[s] . . . submitted from January 1 through 
     November 1, 2008, showed that . . . 78 percent contained 
     errors.

  The inspector general goes on to say:

       There are . . . no controls to prevent an ITIN from being 
     used by more than one taxpayer on multiple tax returns.

  Nobody is checking if the ITIN number is used again, so they just 
file multiple returns.
  It goes on to say:

       More than 60,000 ITINs were assigned and used on multiple 
     tax returns, processed in Calendar Year 2008.

  So more than 60,000 of these numbers issued to individuals were used 
on more than one tax return. They shouldn't be using them but on one.
  It goes on to say:

       In addition, more than 55,000 ITINs were used multiple 
     times on approximately 102,000 tax returns with refunds 
     totaling more than $202 million. These are just the ones 
     which used the number on more than one return.

  The report goes on:

       97 percent [of] supporting identification documents . . . 
     were missing or illegible . . . 23 percent [of] signatures 
     were missing . . . [and] 5 percent [had incorrect] birth 
     dates.

  And it goes on and on.
  Something of interest is the news media has dug into this a bit. 
NBC's affiliate in Indianapolis in April of 2012 reported this:

       An undocumented worker in southern Indiana told Channel 13-
     Investigates just how easy it truly is.
       He said four other illegal immigrants file tax returns 
     using his address, even though none of them actually lives 
     there. And he said this year, those four workers filed tax 
     returns claiming 20 children live inside his small trailer 
     home. As a result, the IRS sent the illegal immigrants tax 
     refunds totaling more than $29,000. But none of the 20 
     children listed as dependents on the tax returns lives in 
     Indiana or even in the United States. ``No, they don't live 
     here,'' admitted the undocumented worker. ``The other kids 
     are in their country of origin, which is Mexico.''
  On July 2012, they further reported about an IRS officer with a 
complaint in South Carolina. They reported that Howard, the IRS 
officer, received a stack of ITIN applications for dozens of children 
attending the same school in South Carolina. When he researched that 
school, he discovered it didn't even exist. When Howard reported the 
scam to his bosses, he claims his managers ordered him to approve the 
applications anyway. The inspector general also looked into that 
complaint.
  This is not good. The taxpayers don't need to be subjected to this 
kind of fraud and abuse, and we absolutely should not cut veterans' 
earned retirement benefits while refusing to take action against such 
fraud and abuse as identified by our Treasury Department.
  I offered the amendment to save the soldiers' pensions and pay for it 
by closing this tax loophole, but the majority leader--supported by his 
caucus, including the authors of this legislation--blocked the effort, 
not once but twice.
  Let me make it clear that this bill before us--because our colleagues 
are refusing to utilize this possible fraud-closing mechanism to save 
enough money to more than pay for it--will be asking us to violate the 
fundamental principle of the Ryan-Murray Act. The Ryan-Murray Act 
promised we would spend more but that new spending would be paid for by 
taxes and spending cuts, and one of the spending cuts were the cuts to 
the veterans. If we take out the cuts to the veterans, where are we 
going to get the money to make sure the bill is paid for as promised? 
That is the question. We have offered a perfectly reasonable and 
essential loophole-closing mechanism to pay for that and pay even more 
than that. Let me make it clear: The bill before us is placing us in a 
position to choose from allowing an illegality to continue or cutting 
benefits earned by our veterans.
  What we are seeing--in an astonishingly cynical move, if you think 
about it--is that we would restore the pensions to veterans without 
paying for it, without admitting that a mistake was made and not living 
up to the plain promises made in the Ryan-Murray bill, which reinforced 
and repassed spending limitations.
  Congress passed spending caps in 2011. Ryan-Murray spent more but 
also established higher and clearer spending caps. It reestablished 
spending cuts. The Pryor legislation busts the in law Ryan-Murray caps. 
This is not acceptable. Are we blithely ignoring plain spending limits 
passed into law just a few weeks ago? Is there no shame, no 
embarrassment at such a dramatic breach of legal and budgetary spending 
limits?
  Closing the ITIN tax credit loophole is a no-brainer. Let's stop this 
abuse and not cut current retirement of our veterans.
  I hope we can move forward with the legislation today. I am uneasy 
and worried, but let's move forward. Let's bring the bill to the floor 
and maybe a compromise that is acceptable can be reached. I certainly 
believe that Senator Ayotte's proposal--the one I am supporting--is a 
perfectly reasonable compromise that ought to have overwhelming support 
in this body.
  If such an amendment of this nature is not accepted to pay for this 
change, I think the legislation is not going to pass in its current 
form. It would be a plain violation of the promises we made to limit 
spending just a few weeks ago. It is the kind of erosion of integrity 
that will lead this country to financial disaster. We are running up 
too much debt.
  The Congressional Budget Office Director will testify before the 
Budget Committee tomorrow, and I trust the Presiding Officer will be 
there. He is an excellent member of that committee.
  The Congressional Budget Office Director is going to tell us that 
interest on the debt of the United States--which will increase every 
year for the next 10 years and begin to surge upward in the outer 
years--in the 10th year alone will be $890 billion. That is stunning. 
The Department of Defense is just at $500 billion.
  Right now interest on the debt is $250 billion. It is going to $900 
billion in 10 years. The first money this government will have to pay 
is the money we pay on our interest on the debt that we have run up--
$17 trillion. According to CBO, we are going to add another $7 trillion 
over the next 10 years. We will have to pay $24 trillion on interest.
  He told us that if interest rates go up 1 percent, it will add $1.5 
trillion to the amount of interest we would pay over the next 10 years. 
Most people tell us our interest rates are going up.
  I guess what I am saying to my colleagues is that we know we face a 
financial challenge. We know we have to get spending under control. The 
Ryan-Murray bill was designed to ease this year's cuts in the Budget 
Control Act and sequester, and this was the tightest and toughest year 
of all. They eased that, and they said they paid for it with tax 
increases and spending reductions.
  The bill before us would eliminate one of the pay-fors and substitute 
nothing else, which would mean we would add another $6 billion to the 
deficit. That is the path to fiscal irresponsibility and financial 
danger, and we need to get off of it.
  I thank the Chair, yield the floor, and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, today I rise in support of S. 1963, the 
Military Pay Restoration Act.
  Last year, the Senate passed the Bipartisan Budget Act--a bipartisan 
and bicameral agreement that funded our government, provided stability 
for our economy, and reduced our deficit by over $22 billion.

[[Page 2708]]

  I think my colleagues and the American people will agree that last 
year was tough. We saw the delay of the farm bill, the government 
shutdown, and the debt ceiling. Needless to say, this budget agreement 
was a positive step forward.
  However, I will be the first to admit--and I think I maybe was the 
first to admit, possibly--that this wasn't perfect, especially when it 
came to the harmful budget cuts made at the expense of our men and 
women in uniform.
  There is no question we need to cut our spending. I think almost 
everyone in this Chamber agrees with that, and I think so many 
Americans agree with that, but we must do it responsibly. We can 
address the issues we all talk about, such as cutting waste and fraud 
and abuse. We can be smart and eliminate items--again, once we think 
about them and roll up our sleeves and do the hard work and recognize 
we should--such as unnecessary government property purchases and 
maintenance, and pursue other cuts such as out-of-date and inefficient 
programs. All of those issues should be addressed.
  But we cannot balance the budget on the backs of our hard-working 
military members and their families. We are a free nation today because 
of the sacrifices our men and women in uniform make. They make those 
sacrifices for all of us. They make sacrifices for the Nation and for 
the world. They lay their lives on the line for us, oftentimes in 
places far away from their homes and their families, so we can live in 
peace right here at home.
  Ashley, a soldier's wife from Alma, AR, recently wrote me and said: 
``My husband signed up to serve so those that don't want to wouldn't 
have to.''
  We have made a commitment to our servicemembers and we need to honor 
that commitment today by ensuring they receive the benefits they have 
earned.
  When Aaron of Lake City, AR, signed up for the Army and deployed to 
Iraq, he counted on those earned benefits to provide for himself and 
his family. As he said in his letter: ``I held up my end of the 
contract and I believe the government should uphold their end.''
  I agree with Aaron. Singling out our brave servicemembers isn't just 
unfair, it is wrong.
  Dwayne of Drasco, AR, who served in the Air Force, said: ``I have 
been to Iraq and Afghanistan many times. I left a wife and three kids 
that depended on me. I fulfilled my obligation.''
  The government must right this wrong and fulfill our obligation to 
servicemembers such as Dwayne.
  I have introduced the Military Retirement Pay Restoration bill to 
repeal section 403 of the budget agreement that unfairly reduces the 
cost-of-living adjustment benefits for our military retirees under the 
age of 62 by 1 percent and to ensure that our future military retirees 
receive their full retirement pay.
  Unfortunately, I have heard a lot of back-and-forth here in the 
Senate and on the Senate floor about this provision. Instead of working 
against each other, let's work together to get this done. As President 
John F. Kennedy said:

       Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic 
     answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the 
     blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for 
     the future.

  We can fix this. Today, we will take an important step forward in 
fixing it. I am proposing a responsible solution which everyone on this 
floor should be able to support. In fact, I have even heard Speaker 
Boehner down the hall here urging his colleagues over in the House to 
consider supporting legislation that would repeal section 403 of the 
budget agreement, just as mine does, just as ours does.
  Supporting our men and women in uniform is not a partisan issue; it 
is an American issue. We have seen 30 of the major veterans groups urge 
us to fix this: the Air Force Association, the Marine Corps League, the 
Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the U.S., the Association 
of the U.S. Navy, the Military Officers Association of America, just to 
name a few. There are 30 of these organizations that have urged us to 
fix this. They have told us: ``This provision breaks faith with each 
individual who has faithfully served their nation for over two decades 
in uniform.''
  So let's fix it. Let's restore America's faith in Congress by doing 
the right thing today. Let's give our soldiers and their families the 
unwavering support they have given us. Let's put the partisanship 
aside, and let's pass this bill. Our military members and their 
families are counting on us.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURPHY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Gun Violence

  Mr. MURPHY. I try to come down to the floor every week or so to give 
voices to the victims of gun violence. All across this country, every 
day and every week, dozens, hundreds, thousands of Americans are gunned 
down on our streets and in our homes, in part because the Congress does 
absolutely nothing, has done absolutely nothing over the course of the 
past several years, over the course of the past decade, to try to curb 
this scourge of destruction that plagues virtually every corner of our 
society. Eighty-six people a day die at the hands of guns; 2,639, 
approximately, people every month. We lose 31,000 people every year. 
There is not another first-world country in the world that can come 
close to the level of gun violence we have here in the United States.
  On top of these numbers are the horrific trendlines on mass 
shootings. Over the course of January, we saw a school shooting 
essentially every 2 days that school was in session. ``Luckily'' is not 
the word to ascribe to this sentence, but luckily, in each one of those 
instances, the damage was relatively minor to the potential damage that 
will unfortunately one day come when a shooter walks into one of these 
schools and is able to perpetrate the kind of violence that Adam Lanza 
did in Newtown, CT. We are sending a message of complicity when the 
Senate and the House of Representatives stand absolutely silent in the 
face of this violence.
  I have come to the floor almost every week, and I hope that almost 
every time I arrive at the floor, I let my colleagues know that I don't 
expect that any law we pass is going to reduce 31,000 or 2,600 or 86 to 
zero. I understand that the reality is there is no law we can pass that 
will end all incidents of gun violence, that there is no panacea to 
this problem that Congress can offer, but we send a very clear message 
when we do nothing. When the Senate does not act, when the House does 
not act, we tell people in this country that we must be OK with the 
numbers that continue to accrue and move upward. I know that isn't the 
case. I know my Republican colleagues are just as sickened as I am at 
86 people dying every day from guns. I know that supporters of the NRA, 
gun owners themselves, can't stand that this number is so high at 
31,000 a year. But if the stats don't do it, then hopefully the voices 
of these victims will. So I offer four more recent victims, all from 
the streets of our cities in Connecticut.
  Varnouard Hall was killed just a few days ago in New Haven, CT, 
January 31. He was shot and killed on the corner of East Pearl Street 
and Pierpont Street in New Haven. Emergency personnel were dispatched 
shortly before 10 p.m., and they found Hall lying on the ground, 
unresponsive, with a gunshot wound to his head. He was pronounced dead 
at the scene. Hall was the third homicide victim of the year, 31 days 
into January.
  A couple of days later about 60 people gathered at the corner where 
Hall was shot. He had a lot of family, he had a lot of friends, and 
they mourned together. His family members and friends remember him as a 
very kind person. The family says: We don't want retaliation; we want 
justice.
  Hall's sister Renee Evans said:

       I need people to stop being afraid to say what they see. If 
     you see it, say it; you don't

[[Page 2709]]

     need to give your name. . . . Anyone who knows something 
     should call the police.

  He was a well-liked person all across the neighborhood.
  Varnouard Hall, shot dead, was 33 years old.
  Durell Patrick Law was killed 10 days earlier in New Haven. He had 
just started attending church regularly, the Faith Revival Temple 
Church in West Haven. He had gone to one of his first services on 
January 19, and he didn't make it to the next service--not by choice 
but because he was shot dead on Eastern Street on January 20. This was 
the city's first homicide of 2014. Mourners packed that church, where 
he was a new parishioner, to mourn him. They said he was a good man who 
liked to goof around, especially with his many family members.
  Durell leaves behind a 1-year-old son. He was very active in sports 
in high school, and he was only 20 years old. In high school he had 
participated in football and track.
  Justin Mariano was 29 years old when just before the new year he was 
killed in Bridgeport, CT. He was shot on the evening of November 9. 
Police responded to Bridgeport Hospital, where Mariano later died from 
his injuries. He had just started working at a barbershop called Sharp 
Cutz, and he was remembered by the people who worked with him and the 
folks who trained him at a local cosmetology school as talented, 
bright, and energetic.
  Jerome Copeland was 22 years old when he was killed on the streets of 
Hartford. He was the 16th homicide victim in Hartford when he was 
killed in the late summer of 2013. A woman who knew him said that ``he 
was a young father, struggling, trying to make ends meet.'' He leaves 
behind a son, a brother, two sisters, and a loving girlfriend who 
described him as ``an energetic man who loves music.''
  When I was at Central High School in Bridgeport a few weeks ago, I 
was sitting with a group of kids who wanted to see what they could do 
to end the violence on the streets of their city, to feel a little 
safer when they walked to school in the morning. I asked them all: How 
many of you know someone--a close relative or friend--who has been 
killed by guns? They looked at me strangely; in part, because every 
single one of them raised their hands. At Central High School you just 
accept at some point before you reach the age of 18 you are going to 
know somebody--a close friend or relative--who has been killed by guns 
in that city.
  At a similar meeting of high school students in Hartford, CT, one 
young girl said the signs of police sirens at night were her lullaby 
growing up. She just knew there was a pretty good chance on any night 
someone was going to be killed in her neighborhood and she had come to 
accept the signs of crisis response as just the pitter-pat of raindrops 
outside.
  To these kids, they look at their lives, in which they fear for their 
safety when they walk to school, in which they accept the inevitable 
fact they will lose someone close to them over the course of their 
teenage years, and they do not understand the complacency of the 
Senate.
  A recent study of Cook County hospitals in and around Chicago showed 
of all the people they treated for episodes of violence, nearly half of 
them displayed signs of PTSD. The fact is, in these neighborhoods, PTSD 
is a reality in the same way it is for our troops who serve us overseas 
because they witness horrific acts of violence in neighborhoods that 
are supposed to be safe for our kids. We shouldn't have to compare the 
levels of PTSD in the neighborhoods our kids transit in the same way we 
look at PTSD on the field of battle.
  It is time we did something--whether it is an investment in new 
mental health resources or beefed-up background checks to make sure 
criminals aren't buying guns or a recognition there are some weapons 
that probably deserve to be in the hands of the military rather than in 
the hands of everyday citizens. It is time for us to have an answer. 
These numbers--31,000, 2,600, and 86--are too high. If the stats don't 
do it, then hopefully over time the voices of victims will.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.


                    RECOGNIZING NORTH DAKOTA FIREMEN

  Ms. HEITKAMP. Madam President, most of the country watched with a 
great deal of interest right before the new year, when we unfortunately 
had a train derailment in Casselton, ND. What was unique about this 
train derailment was that the train that derailed subsequently derailed 
another train which resulted in a fairly large explosion, which sent 
shock waves through the rest of the country as we started to address 
the issue of how do we maintain safety on the rails.
  So we have been having a lot of discussions about what is the 
appropriate level of regulation. We have been having a lot of 
discussions about tank cars. The U.S. Department of Transportation has 
been meeting with the railroad industry as well as the oil and gas 
industry trying to assure whatever decisions are made, that they 
enhance safety. But I wish to talk about something that is not about 
government regulation and it is not about long-term strategies, except 
to point out the heroics and the importance of first responders.
  I rise to honor the heroics of Geoff Andersen, an engineer in 
training for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, whose bravery 
following the recent train derailment near Casselton prevented the 
dangerous explosions from the crash from spreading even farther.
  For many of us in the Senate, the Casselton derailment has trained 
our focus on our efforts to improve safety for the rail shipments of 
crude oil. From increased track inspections to updated tanker car 
standards, to the consideration of new routing options for crude 
shipments, all angles for improving the safety of crude rail shipments 
are being considered. What we should not overlook in our efforts, 
however, is the importance of skillful and well-trained railmen on the 
lines. Railmen such as Geoff Andersen are the backbone of that 
industry, and when one goes above and beyond the call of duty to 
prevent a disaster from spreading, they deserve to be recognized.
  On December 30, a grain car carrying soybeans to the Pacific 
Northwest derailed near Casselton, ND. An axle broke on the car near 
the middle of the train, forcing the car off the rails and onto the 
tracks of the adjacent line carrying trains in the opposite direction. 
Conductor Bruce Anderson and Road Foreman of Engines Paul Douglas 
radioed the emergency to the oncoming train on the opposite track, but 
there was insufficient time to slow down that train headed their way. 
In the brief moments following the derailment, an eastbound train 
carrying crude oil collided with a soybean car lying over the tracks 
and the eastbound train exploded.
  Following the crash, Geoff and the entire crew of the westbound grain 
train sprang into action. Immediately following the derailment, 
Conductor Bruce Anderson went back and pulled approximately 50 cars 
away from the fire. Recognizing the fire would soon spread to the 
remaining cars, Geoff worked with Assistant Fire Chief Adrian Kieffer 
to hatch a plan to couple back onto the remaining oil cars and unhook 
the tanker cars and pull them to safety.
  Geoff, a former civilian firefighter for the Grand Forks Air Force 
Base, borrowed two radios and fire protection gear from the Casselton 
Fire Department. His engineer and trainer, Tom Cooks, jumped into the 
rear engine of the train to reverse the locomotive toward the fire and 
connected the train to the tanker cars in danger of exploding.
  Geoff, armed in fire protection gear, walked toward the fire to 
connect the train to the cars. He then walked even closer to the fire 
to pull the pin on the closest tanker car within a safe distance, 
getting 25 more cars away from the fire.
  Remember, these are cars filled with crude oil.
  Once the pin was pulled, Geoff radioed to Tom to pull the cars away.
  Because of Geoff's heroics, the danger from the derailment was 
minimized and the explosions were isolated to the tanker cars adjacent 
to the derailment.

[[Page 2710]]

Had it not been for Geoff, this disaster would have been much worse.
  I would like to take this time to thank not only Geoff Andersen but 
all those involved in the response, including Engineer Tom Cooks, 
Conductor Bruce Anderson, Road Foreman of Engines Paul Douglas, 
Casselton Fire Chief Tim McLean, and Casselton Assistant Fire Chief 
Adrian Kieffer, for their presence of mind and their decisive action 
following the crash to minimize the danger of this derailment.
  I rise with some awareness of what firemen do. As attorney general 
for the State of North Dakota, I had the pleasure of also being 
responsible for the fire marshal's office. As somebody in charge of the 
fire marshal's office, I spent a great deal of time traveling across 
North Dakota visiting not only with full-time firemen but the wonderful 
volunteer fire offices we have all across North Dakota.
  I have a special spot in my heart for firemen. My dad was chief of 
the fire department in Mantador, ND, for years and years, and took that 
effort quite seriously, took the training quite seriously.
  As we move forward in this discussion of guaranteeing the safety of 
crude moving on the rails, I ask this body to consider a third prong, 
beyond simply looking at routing decisions and prevention of 
derailment, and then in the unfortunate incidence, of containment of 
the consequences of derailment; that is, the importance of training, 
the importance of doing everything we can to provide the equipment and 
to provide the training and the resources to our first responders.
  Anyone who doubts the commitment of those first responders to put 
their lives in harm's way need only look to the 9/11 responders and 
realize, if you have worked with firemen, they all knew when they 
walked into that building their chances of returning were virtually 
nonexistent. Yet they walked into that building in an effort that we 
can only shake our heads at--the heroics of that effort. Take a look at 
the heroics of Geoff Andersen and his colleagues in doing everything 
they could to promote public safety and to guarantee public safety. 
Let's respond with appropriate public policy and appropriate training 
and appropriate resources for our first responders.
  I yield the floor, 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. BEGICH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, I am one of the sponsors of the bill 
pending before the Senate at this moment. As we know, the bill is about 
as simple as we can get around this place: a one-sentence measure to 
restore the fairness to America's military retirees. The bill repeals 
the COLA cut Congress gave to working-age military retirees when we 
passed the budget just before Christmas.
  The budget bill had a lot of good provisions and passed with large 
bipartisan support on both sides of the Capitol. It avoided another 
government shutdown. Alaska's delegation was unified in passing the 
budget bill. It prevented another round of major cuts to Defense 
Department and other agencies. It showed the American people that 
Republicans and Democrats can work together. But it wasn't much of a 
Christmas present for our veterans--the brave Americans who made a 
career out of serving their country and, in many cases, putting their 
lives on the line.
  That budget deal says working-age military retirees will see their 
pension COLA adjustments reduced by 1 percent annually. For many this 
is a hit totaling tens of thousands of dollars over years. For some the 
total reduction over their lifetime is upwards of $80,000. It is 
completely unacceptable. This is why many of us only supported the 
budget deal because we had already committed to rolling back the COLA 
cut once the deal was completed.
  The bill before us right now will take care of the problem once and 
for all. The chief sponsors are Senators Hagan, Pryor, Shaheen, and 
myself. Many others are coming onboard. In fact, I don't know a single 
Member of this Chamber who opposes making sure our military retirees 
continue to receive their full COLA. It is right to do. When these 
heroes signed on to serve and made their military service a career, it 
is what they were promised. They should expect no less now.
  But I have been around the block a few times and I know what is 
coming. Many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going 
to come to this floor and talk a good game. They are going to pledge 
their loyalty to the troops, they are going to wrap themselves in the 
flag, and then they are going to pivot. They are going to start 
qualifying things. They are going to say the sky is falling. And they 
are going to say we can only pass this bill if we pay for it. We have 
already been down that road. Many of us in this Chamber tried to fix 
the military COLA last month, but our efforts failed in a fight over 
what is known around here as a pay-for. Honestly, I am sick of it.
  The bill before us right now--the bill I proudly sponsor--has no pay-
for. Why is that, people ask. Because the men and women of our Armed 
Services have already paid--paid up on their end of the deal--and now 
it is time for us to pay our part.
  Unfortunately, too many of them have paid the ultimate sacrifice, 
with their lives. All of them--even those who served, who survived, and 
were lucky enough to retire--had agreed to put their lives on the line. 
That is the deal when you sign up to serve this country.
  So to my colleagues I say, don't come down to this floor and lecture 
me about paying for this bill, because it is a simple thing to do.
  I have a list right here of Alaskan soldiers who died in battle 
during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars that weren't paid 
for. There are 22 names here. Alaska is a small-populated State, so 
every one of these losses hit us hard.
  In all, nearly 6,800 American soldiers have died in these 2 wars. 
Half of these fallen soldiers were between the ages of 18 and 24 years 
old. With permission, I am going to read just a few of the names of our 
fallen Alaskans:
  TSgt Leslie Williams, Air Force, age 36, Juneau; PFC Adare Cleveland, 
Army, age 19, Anchorage; SGT Kurtis Arcala, Army, age 22, Palmer; 
Michael Lasky, Marine Reserves, age 22, Sterling.
  Twenty-two Alaskans have paid the price. Granted, we will never know 
if these brave soldiers would have chosen to make a full career out of 
the military. We will never know if they would have collected a pension 
from the country they served. But this much we do know: Every American 
troop who is serving right now, especially the career soldiers, signed 
on with a promise from the rest of us that in return for their 
sacrifice, their government would take care of them.
  It is time for those of us in Congress to step up and do that--both 
sides of the aisle on both sides of the Capitol. It is time for us to 
pass this bill and to make good once again on our end of a deal.
  Let me make one point. Our actions so far on this issue are not 
theatrical. This isn't about some ideological policy debate. By voting 
to reduce the COLA adjustment, we have already impacted real people and 
real families and created uncertainty in their future. Here are just 
two examples of Alaskan constituents.
  A soldier from Anchorage wrote to me and said:

       I myself am on active duty with just over 18 years of 
     service. Maybe I made a mistake by devoting my life from age 
     19 to now to the Air Force.

  He said he has moved six times, has two failed marriages and two 
children, one of whom is disabled. He says we changed the rules of the 
game and now wonders what would have happened if he had chosen college 
instead of the military. The letter says:

       I can't undo 18 years of service. I can't change my career 
     path. It seems very unfair to be changing our retirement like 
     this.


[[Page 2711]]


  Another family from the North Pole up near Fairbanks wrote to me. The 
husband served 20 years in the Air Force, and their daughter is 
currently a major in the Air Force. They were promised benefits for 
life, such as good health care and retirement benefits with a COLA 
adjustment. The husband could have left sooner and started another 
career, but he chose to stay because of the benefits. Their message to 
me was very simple: The vote to reduce the COLA breaks faith with them, 
with those already retired, and with everyone who has chosen a military 
career.
  And what about those bright young people who are deciding right now 
whether to sign up and perhaps make a career out of the military? What 
are they thinking about their Congress and their future?
  We need to fix this, and fix it right now, starting with our vote 
this evening--not next month, not later this spring, not next fall, but 
right now.
  I know there is going to be a lot of debate. Hopefully tonight we 
will see the cloture vote and move to the debate. I know there will be 
a list of pay-fors. As I said earlier, the people whom this protects 
and ensures they have a COLA and retirement they can depend on are 
people who served this country and put their lives on the line. We have 
an obligation--an obligation today, tonight, and tomorrow--to finish 
this and put their COLA back in place.
  I know we will hear arguments about the deficit and all these 
explanations. But I can't say enough about the payment that has already 
been made by our military, by the people who served not only on the 
frontlines but throughout this world, protecting our country. I hope we 
put aside our political debates and our politicking, and get on with 
doing what is right.
  When we put this in perspective about the 6,800 who perished in the 
two unpaid-for wars--$2 trillion-plus unpaid for--this is a $6 billion 
issue over the next 10 years. It is a small amount to make sure we 
solve this problem for our retirees.
  The military coalition--an incredible organization of many of our 
military organizations around the country--has sent a letter today 
supporting S. 1963, the bill we have up today. So I hope Members on 
both sides put aside this whole argument on the pay-for and let's get 
on with doing what is right with our retirees. They have paid the 
price, they have served our country, and it is time to pay the bill--
and that is voting for this piece of legislation tonight, voting to 
close it in cloture, and then moving on to final passage.
  I look forward to the debate.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I wish to speak as if in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I see that S. 1963, a bill to repeal 
certain reductions made by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, is on the 
calendar. I didn't vote for the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, and my 
no vote was cast for one reason--this so-called CPI-minus-1-percent 
injustice done to military retirees. Military retirees under the age of 
62--according to this newly passed bipartisan budget bill signed by the 
President--will not be able to keep up with the cost of living because 
their annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, would be reduced each 
year by 1 percent.
  I think we have clearly pointed out to the American people the 
injustice of this provision in the Budget Act. An enlisted person would 
lose approximately $80,000 out of his or her pocket over their 
lifetime. These military retirees have fulfilled every part of their 
bargain. After they have done their share and subjected themselves to 
worldwide duty--perhaps serving in a war zone any number of times--the 
government comes along in the form of this bill and says: We have 
changed our minds. We are not going to give you your full cost of 
living. We are going to take a percent of that each year. For officers 
it is even more than $80,000 over their lifetime.
  I believe most Americans now realize that it was a mistake to do 
this. It needs to be corrected, and we need to go back and keep our 
promise to military retirees. We have an obligation to do this for our 
military retirees.
  At the same time, we have an obligation to future generations not to 
go back on the budget savings that were so hard fought in this budget 
act. I supported the level of budget savings, but I didn't like the way 
they were done.
  Time and time again I, along with Senator Ayotte, Senator Graham, and 
others came to the Senate floor and pointed out that there were other 
ways to pay for the savings that needed to be made in the budget. There 
are better ways to do that than taking it out of the hides of the 
people who volunteered to serve their country in the military.
  We have a bill, S. 1963, that we will be considering, and it is 
authored by Mr. Pryor, Mrs. Hagan, Mrs. Shaheen, and Mr. Begich. I like 
the idea of addressing the problem. There is only one fault in the 
bill. It does not have a pay-for. So of the budget savings that we made 
last December, some $6 billion of that would simply go away and we 
would end up spending that $6 billion we were planning to save.
  Our obligation needs to be to the military people and to future 
generations. Why do we need to cut $6 billion? Why do we need to stay 
with the $6 billion in budget savings? Because we have an obligation to 
do something about the debt. That was the whole reason for the budget 
bill last December. We are drowning in a sea of debt to the tune of $17 
trillion-plus and growing every day. We need to rectify the wrong done 
to military people, and at the same time we need to find the budget 
savings elsewhere.
  Today I will vote to proceed to the bill. I will do so in the hope 
that Republicans and conservatives will be allowed to offer amendments 
in the regular order and find the $6 billion in savings needed over a 
10-year period to pay for this bill.
  There is a proposal by me, Senator Ayotte, and Senator Graham that 
would use an Obama administration pay-for to pay for the cost of 
rectifying the wrong to the military retirees. It is a closing of a 
loophole in the U.S. Tax Code. The loophole I am referring to allows 
people to improperly claim an additional child credit.
  The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that this change could 
save approximately $20 billion over the next decade. This was an issue 
identified by the Obama administration's Treasury Department and their 
inspector general. We are not taking something from the Heritage 
Foundation. This is something by the Treasury Department of the Obama 
administration and their inspector general.
  I simply submit this to my colleagues. Let's rectify the wrong done 
to the military retirees and also admit we have an obligation to future 
generations and not add to the debt any more than this Congress has 
already done. We can fulfill both of these obligations today, and the 
way to do it is to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed, which I, 
and I believe many of my Republican colleagues, will do.
  In return, we ask for regular order on this important bill. Allow 
amendments and pay-fors through the Ayotte-Graham-Wicker legislation or 
perhaps through another amendment. If there are Members on the other 
side of the aisle who have a better pay-for, bring that to the floor, 
offer it, let the sun shine on these suggestions, and let the American 
people know where we stand on righting the wrong and protecting future 
taxpayers.
  I say to my colleagues, vote yes on cloture on the motion to proceed. 
I say to the leadership, don't lock it down this time like it has done 
in the past. Don't fill up the amendment tree. Allow Republicans and 
Democrats--who have other ideas about how to protect our future 
generations from a sea of debt--to bring those ideas to the floor, vote 
on them, and let the American people see that we can correct this

[[Page 2712]]

wrong to the military without adding $6 billion to the debt.
  I hope we will have a bipartisan consensus and begin this new year 
with regular order and allow the elected representatives of the States 
to work their will rather than having deals cut behind closed doors.
  I thank the Presiding Officer and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Cloture Motion

  Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending 
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 298, S. 1963, a bill to repeal 
     section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.
         Harry Reid, Mark L. Pryor, Mark Begich, Kay R. Hagan, 
           Jeanne Shaheen, Jack Reed, Brian Schatz, Christopher A. 
           Coons, Angus S. King, Jr., Bill Nelson, Richard J. 
           Durbin, Tim Kaine, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Jeff Merkley, 
           Debbie Stabenow, Barbara Boxer, Kirsten E. Gillibrand.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to S. 1963, a bill to repeal section 403 of the 
Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Corker), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Donnelly). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 94, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 26 Leg.]

                                YEAS--94

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Lee
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Coburn
     Corker
     Graham
     Johnson (WI)
     Rubio
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 94, the nays are 0. 
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the 
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of S. 
1963.
  I ask unanimous consent that after my remarks, Senator Brown from 
Ohio follow me for a time not to exceed 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, this is a bill Senator Pryor and I have 
introduced to repeal the harmful cuts to military retirement pay in the 
recent Bipartisan Budget Act. As the Senator from the most military-
friendly State in the Nation, I am pleased that we have just voted to 
advance this important legislation that will affect so many brave men 
and women from North Carolina and around the country who serve our 
Nation in the military.
  These harmful cuts to military retirement pay were included in the 
recent bipartisan budget that passed the House and Senate with 
bipartisan support. While I supported the Murray-Ryan budget because it 
rolled back across-the-board sequester cuts that threaten our military 
capabilities and the safety of our troops, I am opposed to the 
provisions in this budget that reduce these cost-of-living adjustments 
for military men and women who have served our country with honor and 
distinction. Without action these cost-of-living cuts will take effect 
in December of 2015. By passing this legislation this week we can keep 
our promise to our servicemembers and veterans who do not deserve to 
have their retirement benefits cut.
  The proposed cuts would affect our current and future retirees who 
are still serving our country on Active Duty. If allowed to remain, the 
cost-of-living cuts would cost a typical retiree over $80,000. In my 
State of North Carolina, close to 90,000 retirees as well as thousands 
of servicemembers still on Active Duty would bear the brunt of these 
cuts.
  I recently heard from a veteran from Apex, NC, who served in the 
military for 21 years, including two tours in Afghanistan, one in Saudi 
Arabia, and one in Korea. He said the cost-of-living cuts changed the 
promise made to his family. After moving 12 times in 21 years, his 
family made decisions on where to live, what house to purchase, what 
job to take, and how to save for his son's education based on this 
pension income.
  I also heard from a woman whose husband is an Active-Duty marine 
stationed at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, NC. She wrote:

       My husband has served 16 years in the infantry, four tours 
     in Iraq and is preparing to deploy to Afghanistan soon. He 
     has kept his promise to the U.S. and earned his benefits in 
     full. We have lived with long-term separations, uncertainty 
     and financial stress. Please do not add to that. The money 
     may not sound like a lot to some, but it means a whole lot to 
     us.

  Once again, that woman's husband is an Active-Duty marine.
  This is unacceptable. We have made a commitment to these brave men 
and women, many of whom have deployed multiple times to combat zones 
overseas. We must keep our promises to our servicemembers after they 
have sacrificed so much for us.
  These cost-of-living cuts would negatively impact not only individual 
servicemembers but also the military as a whole. I serve on the Armed 
Services Committee. Two weeks ago military leaders testified that 
retirement benefits are an integral part of a servicemember's decision 
to remain in the military or to further reenlist. We cannot overlook 
the consequences these cuts would have on the retention of 
servicemembers, particularly midgrade officers and noncommissioned 
officers who are considering the length of their future service, nor 
can we overlook the effect they would have on the military's long-term 
readiness.
  I am pleased that we have acted to prevent the cost-of-living cuts 
for the most severely wounded military retirees and Survivor Benefit 
Plan recipients, but our bill would go further. This would repeal these 
cost-of-living adjustment cuts for all military retirees. Yes, it is 
true that our country faces difficult fiscal challenges. However, we 
can never balance the budget on the backs of those who have answered 
the call to duty. We must keep the promises we have made to our 
veterans, who have put their lives on the line to protect us. I urge my 
colleagues to support our legislation that will ensure current and 
future veterans receive the benefits they have earned.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I appreciate the words of Senator Hagan, 
who

[[Page 2713]]

has been a leader in the Senate on issues for our veterans, for their 
health care and Camp Lejeune and so many other ways, looking out for 
pensions and health care for those who have earned it and sacrificed 
for us. She, as do I, believes it is an honor to honor those who have 
sacrificed for us.


                           CVS TOBACCO SALES

  Today I was at a CVS drugstore in Lakeland, OH, a city west of 
Cleveland, thanking and celebrating, if you will--perhaps a strong 
word--CV's decision they announced last week that they would stop 
selling tobacco products at their 7,000 stores and pharmacies and that 
they would invest in a national smoking-cessation campaign designed to 
help people quit smoking. CVS's CEO said that is ``the right thing to 
do for customers and our company to help people on their path to better 
health . . . Put simply, the sale of tobacco is inconsistent with our 
purpose.''
  That is good news.
  In my State one in every five deaths is connected to tobacco. Ohio 
ranks sixth in the adult smoking rate, and 16,900 children in Ohio 
under 18 start smoking each year. The Presiding Officer knows what we 
know about tobacco. We know that every year in the United States of 
America 480,000 people die of tobacco-related illnesses. Do you know 
what else we know? Because 480,000 Americans die from tobacco-related 
illnesses, we know that the big tobacco company executives understand 
they have to find 480,000 new customers every year to buy their 
products.
  The Presiding Officer knows there is nothing particular about his age 
or mine, but they do not aim at people such as us. They do not aim at 
people in their forties, fifties, and sixties to get them to join to 
replace those 480,000 people who have passed away; they aim at people 
the age of our pages who are sitting in the well.
  In fact, they don't aim at only 16- and 17-year-olds, they are aiming 
at 
12-, 13-, 14-, and 15-year-olds.
  Joining me at CVS today were two young women, Shanisha Collins and 
Melissa Renton. They both smoke and are both working to quit smoking. 
Both are doing very well as they quit smoking. They both started 
smoking, they told us, as teenagers, and CVS is working with them in 
their smoking-cessation campaign.
  We were also joined by Michael Roizen of the Cleveland Clinic who has 
done remarkable work in preventive care in a preventive medical 
practice, if you will, at the Cleveland Clinic. He is a heart doctor 
who also has done so well in various kinds of care to help people quit 
smoking, to help people lose weight, and to help people prevent 
diabetes--all of the preventive care he has worked on.
  We were also joined by two nurse practitioners, Lauren and Molly, who 
as part of the CVS clinic have helped people do to better manage their 
health.
  The point is CVS has made this decision. It isn't earth-shaking. Half 
of the cigarettes bought today are from gas stations, and that is not 
going to change much. Cigarettes are going to be available. It is a 
legal product. In fact, people should have the right to buy cigarettes 
if they choose to. But the point is tobacco companies shouldn't be able 
to target young people the way they do.
  We have seen major progress. Fifty years ago the Surgeon General 
issued his groundbreaking report on the health effects of tobacco use. 
Look at the progress we have made. Some 42 percent of adults smoked 
cigarettes in 1965. Today 18 percent of adults smoke cigarettes. It has 
been a huge public health victory, and it has been a huge public health 
victory in small steps and large steps.
  First, the report was very important. We remember as kids--the 
Presiding Officer is old enough to remember this, as I am--we could 
smoke anywhere in our society. State governments then began to prohibit 
smoking in public buildings and then began to prohibit smoking in other 
publicly owned buildings--government buildings. Then people couldn't 
smoke in public places in many States around the country.
  We remember people used to smoke on airplanes. Then over time smoking 
was restricted to, I remember, aisles 18 to 35 or something--so you 
could smoke if you were in one of those aisles but not in a seat in 
front of that or behind that--whatever it was. Now smoking is banned on 
all flights. We have seen major progress made.
  CVS is one step in that. We have sent a group of us led by Senator 
Harkin--Senator Blumenthal has been involved, and a number of others--
asking the other drugstore chains--Walgreens and Right Aid--to do the 
same, to quit selling cigarettes there.
  So we have seen progress, but it is still a major public health 
problem. In one of the places it is particularly a problem. I said at 
the beginning of my remarks that 480,000 people in America die from 
tobacco-related illnesses every year--heart diseases, cancer, a whole 
host of illnesses that are connected to smoking or chewing tobacco. So 
they aim at children, for sure, with their targeted campaigns, but they 
also go overseas. The tobacco companies are trying to undermine public 
health laws, particularly in poor countries around the world.
  If someone is a public health official in India, they have to worry 
about cholera, malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS, child diarrhea. They have to 
worry about all the things that kill people prematurely in that 
country. When the tobacco companies come in--whether they are American 
companies, British companies or companies from any other country--they 
don't have much defense against that. That is why I know the Presiding 
Officer from Indiana has been a real leader in opposing bad trade 
policy for our country.
  But one of the elements of a bad trade policy is giving U.S. tobacco 
companies too much power to go into far too many of these countries to 
cajole, threaten, and even undermine public health laws.
  In fact, we have seen in more than one country--thought to be a poor 
country, without too many people, and that does not have many public 
resources, and where people are very poor--we have seen tobacco 
companies threaten those countries that are about to enact a health 
care law, and that country backs off because they don't have the 
dollars or the resources to fight the tobacco companies' efforts in 
court.
  We have a lot of work to do.
  I wanted to share what happened today in Lakewood, OH, with my 
colleagues, how important it is, and what a huge public health victory. 
Again, I want to emphasize how successful these efforts to curb the use 
of tobacco are--the greatest preventable killer in the country--and how 
successful we have been. More than 40 percent of people smoked in 1965 
and today fewer than 20 percent. That is because of a partnership among 
government, local officials, public health officials, the American 
Cancer Society, and the American Heart Association. So many of these 
organizations have stepped up in a way that has mattered--the American 
Lung Association and others--to protect the public interest and 
especially to protect children.
  I applaud the efforts of that company and the efforts of so many of 
my colleagues who have been working on this issue.
  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. BEGICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________