[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 10018-10029]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                   2015--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                     Tribute to Senator Jim Bunning

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I rise to pay tribute to a great 
friend of mine and a friend of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, former 
Senator Jim Bunning. Jim has been an inspiration to Kentuckians for 
decades in many different roles--as a public servant, a man of 
integrity, a devoted father of 9 children, grandfather of 35, and a 
great-grandfather of 12, with 1 more on the way. But few public 
servants or family men can also claim to be in the Baseball Hall of 
Fame. Jim Bunning can, for his extraordinary Major League pitching 
career with the Detroit Tigers and with the Philadelphia Phillies.
  With Father's Day approaching this weekend, I thought it appropriate 
to remember what Jim Bunning accomplished on Father's Day 1964. The 
date was June 21, and in front of his wife Mary, his eldest daughter 
Barbara, and more than 32,000 cheering fans, Jim Bunning delivered the 
perfect Father's Day gift by pitching a perfect game.
  Let me take a moment to explain, for those who do not spend their 
youth playing baseball and collecting baseball cards as some of us did, 
what pitching a perfect game means and why it is such a legendary feat. 
To pitch a perfect game, a pitcher must pitch a full nine innings 
without allowing a batter to get on base for any reason--no hits, no 
walks, no hits by a pitch, and no errors. Twenty-seven batters must 
step to the plate and all 27 must sit down. It is an achievement that 
has been accomplished only 23 times in more than 135 years of Major 
League Baseball history--23 times in the history of Major League 
Baseball.
  At the time Jimmy's pitching perfection was only the seventh perfect 
game in Major League Baseball history. It was the first perfect game in 
regular season play in more than 42 years and the first in the National 
League since 1880. As the Philadelphia Phillies were the visitors 
against the New York Mets, it was also the first-ever perfect game 
pitched in Shea Stadium.
  Jimmy's day started as did any other Sunday. He went to 9 a.m. Mass 
and had a breakfast of eggs and sausage. He was worried about getting 
tickets for his wife and daughter to attend the game. He showed up at 
Shea Stadium to warm up for the first game of a doubleheader. ``I felt 
good and loose,'' Jim recalls. ``I realized right away that I had 
exceptional stuff.''
  With a combination of fastballs, curveballs, and sliders, Jim began 
to make short work of the Mets' batting order. By the sixth inning, he 
began to consider that he was on the cusp of history.
  ``Everyone is supposed to do perfect work, but perfection in the game 
of baseball is a rarity I never expected to accomplish.'' That is what 
the big right-hander had to say about that.
  The final Met at bat was John Stephenson, a lefty. Here is how the 
Philadelphia Inquirer described the game's dramatic conclusion:

       The rookie swung at a low-breaking ball and missed, took a 
     pitch for a second strike, then took two balls, one low 
     outside and the other high and away. Bunning came back with a 
     curve at the knees on the outside part of the plate. 
     Stephenson swung and missed and the Phillies made a bee-line 
     for the mound. They came running from their positions and 
     streamed out of the dugout to pound the former American 
     Leaguer on the back and escort him to the dugout.

  The story continues:

       A few minutes later, [Bunning] went on television for an 
     interview during which his wife and daughter rushed up to 
     kiss him. It was the thrill of a lifetime for the pitcher, 
     who richly deserved it.

  That he did.
  For baseball fans, the statistics on Jim's perfect game are truly 
numbers to behold. He threw only 90 pitches in the Phillies' 6-to-0 
victory--an average of only 10 per inning. He struck out 10. He did not 
miss the strike zone more than four times in any inning. And he went to 
a three-ball count on only two batters. Statistically, it may be the 
most perfect of perfect games ever pitched.
  Acclaim was instant. Jim appeared on ``The Ed Sullivan Show'' that 
night. This man, who was always a fierce competitor both on the 
pitching mound and in the Halls of Congress, had reached the pinnacle 
of his profession. But it won't surprise any of my colleagues who know 
and worked with Jim that he did not let this sudden rush of fame go to 
his head. ``Fame is fleeting as far as the next hitter at the plate is 
concerned,'' says Jim. I admire my friend and former colleague's 
ability to keep such a momentous event in perspective.
  It is fitting that his perfect game occurred on Father's Day because 
family is really what Jim Bunning is all about. The Bunning family 
celebrated their dad's perfect game not at a fancy

[[Page 10019]]

Manhattan restaurant but at the Howard Johnson's on the New Jersey 
Turnpike. And I know his lovely wife Mary has been his rock and his 
foundation for his entire career in both baseball and politics.
  Jim Bunning was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. But 
for any baseball fan, including this Senator, the thrill of Jimmy's 
perfect game is as fresh as if it happened yesterday, not 50 years ago.
  Jim Bunning always stood tall, firm, and unafraid, whether in sports, 
politics, or life. That is how he became one of Kentucky's favorite 
sons. That is how he became an inspiration to his family and his 
friends and his colleagues. And that is how he threw that perfect game 
on Father's Day 1964. It is his strength of spirit that has enabled Jim 
to succeed. Kentucky is honored to have had Jim Bunning pitching for 
our home team for so many years.
  I am sure that every Father's Day brings back special memories for 
the Bunning family. I am proud to wish my friend and former colleague 
well on the eve of this Father's Day and to extend my best wishes to 
him and to his family.
  Thank you, Jim. Thank you for the example you have set for how to 
compete, how to win, and how to live a good and full life.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           U.S. Manufacturing

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, American manufacturing has taken quite a 
hit in the last 15 years in this country. Some 30 years ago, U.S. 
manufacturing made up some 25 percent of gross domestic product. Today 
that number has declined to somewhere in the vicinity of 10 or 11 
percent of gross domestic product. That has meant literally millions of 
jobs paying good wages in cities and suburbs and rural America that 
have simply disappeared. Some have been lost to technology. Far too 
many have been lost to unfair trade practices, as jobs are moved 
overseas. Some of that responsibility lies with this Congress, which 
has written laws or refused to change laws that encourage companies 
through trade agreements and through tax laws to shut down production 
in Worcester, MA, or Wooster, OH, and move to Wuhan, China.
  But we have seen some good news. From 2000 to 2010, we lost about 5 
million manufacturing jobs; 60,000 plants closed in this country. The 
good news we have begun to see is that since the auto rescue in 2008 
and 2009 and since this President has been relatively aggressive--
better than his predecessors--in enforcing trade laws, we have seen 
growth in manufacturing. Since 2009--again, because of trade 
enforcement, because of the auto rescue--about 500,000 manufacturing 
jobs have been created.
  We see new investments in advanced manufacturing. We see new 
investments in clean energy. Natural gas production is providing 
domestic manufacturers with an affordable energy source. Natural gas 
prices have remained pretty constant at $4 or $5, with a likely 
predictable, stable price for the next several years--maybe for a 
decade.
  This production in natural gas has also increased demand for world-
class tubular steel. Nearly 8,000 workers across the United States make 
what we call oil country tubular goods. That is the steel pipes that 
are some of the strongest steel ever invented, ever developed, because 
that steel needs to be able to absorb high-speed, high-rotation deep 
drilling into water and into stone. Only the best kind of hardened 
steel can withstand that kind of pressure. These jobs--these 8,000 jobs 
making oil country tubular goods--support another 7 jobs in the supply 
chain.
  We have an opportunity to grow the economy by investing in 
manufacturing to create more good-paying jobs. But here is the problem: 
When foreign steel is dumped into our country, American workers pay the 
price. What that means simply is that when South Korea--which literally 
has no domestic market. South Korea has begun to produce oil country 
tubular goods. They do not use this kind of steel in their domestic 
economy. So they began this production, they started up, they ramped up 
this industry all for export, which they are free to do. But global 
oversupply is a major challenge facing our domestic steel industry. It 
threatens thousands of steel jobs.
  OCTG--oil country tubular goods--imports have doubled since 2008. 
Imports account for more than 50 percent of the pipes being used by 
companies drilling for gas and oil. If that were done through fair 
competition, it would be one thing, but here are some things we know:
  We know that in South Korea they need to go to mostly Australia and 
Brazil to get the iron ore and the coal and the limestone for their 
steel production. Plants in Ohio, in the Midwest, go to Minnesota to 
get iron ore or they go to Indiana for their coke, which is made from 
coal. Their coal is processed into coke. They may go to Ohio to get 
their limestone. So the Koreans, obviously, to get their raw 
materials--their raw materials have to travel much longer distances for 
their Korean steel industry than the U.S. steel industry, No. 1.
  No. 2, American workers are paid only slightly more than Korean 
workers, so there is not much difference in the cost of labor.
  No. 3, the U.S. steel manufacturers have upgraded and invested many 
billions of dollars in their production. There is a 2-year-old steel 
mill in Youngstown, OH. There are major investments in Lorain and 
Cleveland to make oil country tubular steel--major investments. I was 
at the Wheatland steel plant north of Youngstown in Warren, OH. There 
is a $20 million new investment there. So our mills are just as 
modern--maybe more modern--than the Korean mills.
  Lastly, after this oil country tubular steel is produced in Ohio or 
in Pennsylvania, it is transported maybe 50 miles to use in the oil and 
gas fields at the Marcellus or Utica shale in Ohio or in the region. 
Korean steel tubes, on the other hand, are transported maybe 10,000 
miles to the fields in this country to use in oil and gas drilling.
  So clearly we know that the Koreans simply are subsidizing their 
steel. We call it steel dumping. Call it whatever technical or 
nontechnical term you want, it is clear that the Koreans are not 
playing fair.
  If they can design an industry--think about this--if Korea can 
decide: Well, there is a market in the United States for this kind of 
steel; we will just design an industry, we will subsidize that steel, 
we will sell into that market, and we may put some of them out of 
business--if we as a government accept this kind of behavior from 
Korea, it will show the rest of the world a blueprint on how you take 
jobs from the United States of America, how you start a business, how 
you invest in this business, how you illegally subsidize this business, 
how you export from your country into the United States, throwing 
American workers out of work, undercutting American companies, and in 
the end making our manufacturing in the United States of America 
experience even more decline than we have seen over the last 30 years.
  We are asking the Department of Commerce to reconsider its 
preliminary decision to make sure they look at what, in fact, has 
happened in this industry. There is no question that the deeper you 
look--or there is no question on the surface--that Korea is subsidizing 
its steel, that it is breaking trade rules.
  There is clear evidence that our workers and manufacturers are being 
cheated in another way; that is, by currency. My bipartisan 
legislation--I have worked with Senator Sessions and Senator Graham and 
others, Senator Stabenow on the Democratic side--our bipartisan 
legislation would crack down on China's currency manipulation. It would 
treat currency manipulation as an unfair trade subsidy and require the 
Commerce Department to

[[Page 10020]]

investigate that currency manipulation.
  If you cheat on currency, if you devalue in playing this game with 
currency at the rate of 30 percent, what that means is when China 
exports a product to the United States, it is 30 percent cheaper, 
making it very hard for U.S. companies to compete--another way of 
subsidizing is through currency--or if U.S. companies try to sell into 
the Chinese market, our goods cost 30 percent more than the Chinese 
goods. So, again, we simply cannot play on a level playing field.
  A report released earlier this year said that 254,000 Ohio jobs would 
be created if currency manipulation were eliminated by 2015.
  When foreign steel is dumped into our country, American workers pay 
the price. When foreign steel is dumped into our country, American 
businesses pay the price. When foreign steel is dumped into our 
country, the communities where these mills are, these communities that 
supply, feed into, and sell items and sell goods into the supply chain, 
pay the price too. So it means fewer teachers, fewer police officers, 
fewer people working, less income, less prosperity in those 
communities.
  Again, when foreign steel is dumped into our country, workers pay the 
price over and over.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  Iraq

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to talk 
about an emerging issue of the highest order for our country's national 
security. I say that because I believe the coverage in the news over 
the last few days about Iraq has missed the greater point about the 
importance of the issue we are now facing.
  Much of the attention--and I understand why--has been paid to the 
fact that the United States invested a tremendous amount of money and 
unfortunately lost many, many lives in the efforts to liberate Iraq 
from Saddam Hussein. These views we now see of Al Qaeda-linked groups 
taking over cities in Iraq rightfully trouble us. We hear the question 
being asked of why did we do all of this. This is without a doubt a 
legitimate concern and one I will touch upon in a moment, but the issue 
of what is happening in Iraq at this moment is much deeper and more 
serious than simply just that.
  Let me begin by describing the emerging situation. There is a radical 
Islamic group by the name of ISIL, as it is called, or ISIS according 
to some. It has different terminologies. But it is a group linked to Al 
Qaeda that emerged in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in western 
Iraq. They were involved in efforts against Americans after we 
liberated Iraq. They killed and maimed countless Americans. However, 
thanks to the assistance we provided, the Iraqis were able to put that 
group on a defensive posture.
  After the United States left Iraq, however, many of this group were 
able to reorganize. They did so increasingly with new leadership, and 
they were able to do it in parts of Syria that became largely 
ungoverned after the Assad regime began to lose control over large 
swaths of land in Syria, and they grew stronger. They grew stronger 
still when foreign fighters from all over the world, who sympathized 
with their Islamic jihadist cause, began flowing into Syria, providing 
them new fighters.
  Over the last few months, as I warned, by the way, in a hearing that 
we had late last year when we debated the issue of the use of force in 
Syria, this group, based largely now in Syria, began to conduct 
operations in Iraq, initially to limited success, and then limited 
operations that had some success. But now, over the last 72 hours, they 
have begun to make dramatic gains in Iraq. In fact, they have overrun 
the second largest city, and there are expectations that they are on 
the way toward Baghdad.
  The goal of this group is pretty straight forward: to establish what 
would be known as an Islamic caliphate, basically an Islamic 
fundamentalist area, country--a terrorist government. By the way, this 
group does not necessarily respect any borders. They are looking to 
carve out pieces of land that they can use to train terrorists and to 
plan operations.
  If we look at the situation in Iraq over the last 72 hours, we have 
legitimate concerns that, in fact, that is what they are on the verge 
of doing, if they have not done so already. When you add up the land 
they now control in Syria and the land they now control in Iraq--by the 
way, in many parts of the towns they are now taking over in Syria, they 
have already began imposing Sharia law. They have banned music; they 
have forced women to wear full veils. This is a radical Islamic group. 
It has shown what it is capable of in its conflict in Iraq when 
Americans were there and thereafter. This is a brutal and murderous 
group that has shown what they are capable of doing to those who oppose 
them. Unfortunately, this is a military-capable group that has made 
dramatic gains over the last few years in Iraq.
  Most startling of all, by the way, has been what has happened with 
the Iraqi military, which we spent money to train and equip. In many 
instances the reports are they just abandoned their posts. They took 
off their uniforms, they put on civilian clothes and just walked away. 
Our fear should be that even as I speak to you now, emerging in the 
center of the Middle East, emerging in this area of the world is an 
Islamic caliphate controlled by the most radical group in that area of 
the world today. That is saying a lot.
  Why should this matter? Well, first, as was pointed out earlier, 
Americans sacrificed greatly so that Iraq could be freed from tyranny. 
Now those gains seem to have evaporated almost overnight. But the most 
concerning long-term aspect of this is that in this part of the world, 
using territory in what was Syria and now Iraq, is the emergence of a 
safe haven. A safe haven is what made 9/11 possible. Al Qaeda was able 
to go into Afghanistan, then controlled by the Taliban, another radical 
Islamic group, and use it as a place to train and plan 9/11 and other 
terrorist acts against the United States.
  Perhaps one of the greatest successes in the post-9/11 efforts has 
been the denial of safe havens where terrorists could do this. But 
suddenly, rapidly a new safe haven is emerging where radical jihadist 
fighters from all over the planet are able to go and be trained. They 
will not simply be satisfied with conducting efforts in that part of 
the world. Rest assured that their targets and ambitions include us, 
including right here in the homeland, right here in the United States.
  If, in fact, they are able to hold on to this territory, Jordan, an 
extraordinary ally of the United States in the region and an ally of 
Israel, is directly threatened. They are the next country--right next 
door. Already Jordan is facing tremendous challenges because of the 
conflict in Syria. Beyond Jordan, you can foresee where Israel could be 
threatened by the existence of the safe haven for a terrorist 
organization right next door--but ultimately us here in the United 
States.
  The goal of these groups is to carry out Western operations. The goal 
of these groups is to attack Americans here, to terrorize. They believe 
and know that perhaps the most effective way to terrorize Americans is 
to not strike us in remote areas of the world, although they will do 
that as well, but to strike us right here in the United States. If they 
have an area where they are able to do this, a piece of land where 
there is no government to drive them out, where in fact they are the 
government, where they can attract the most radical people on the 
planet to come, to train, and to prepare to carry out these attacks, it 
puts in grave danger the security of every American living here in the 
United States.
  This is the risk before us now emerging in Iraq. It is not simply the 
fact that we have lost the gains that were

[[Page 10021]]

once made. That is important and worthy of outrage, but what is most 
startling and concerning of all is the emergence of this safe haven and 
what it can mean to the long-term security of every single one of us.
  What can we do about it is the next question? I must say that while 
national security issues should never be of a partisan nature, I am 
concerned that despite this emergence, we have yet to hear a cohesive 
policy pronouncement from the White House. In fact, a number of my 
colleagues on the other side of aisle--Democrats--have shared the same 
frustration.
  I want to make a couple of brief points with regard to the sorts of 
measures we should be thinking about in outlining a response to prevent 
the creation of a safe haven. The first good news is that this group is 
not invulnerable. This group is vulnerable. No. 1, they have not proven 
to be very good at controlling territory for long periods of time. This 
creates a vulnerability. Here is the other point. This is a Sunni 
Muslim group. But they are not popular among the Sunni population in 
Iraq. Sunnis feel terrorized by them, and they certainly do not like 
the Maliki government. But this is not a group that is popular among 
them.
  Beyond that, I would say the first action we need to take is to make 
sure our personnel are protected, particularly in Baghdad and in the 
Green Zone in Baghdad, the international area, which is vulnerable to 
suicide attacks. We must ensure that our personnel there are protected. 
I understand that steps have been taken and continue to be taken to do 
that. I am encouraged by that. We need to make sure that happens, that 
the men and women who are representing us and are working on our behalf 
in Baghdad are protected.
  One of the reasons why this is happening is because the Maliki 
government has been so terrible. It is not just corruption. It is the 
way this government has created no space for Sunnis living in Iraq that 
has created the possibility of this occurring. This Maliki government 
must be worth saving. Right now the Maliki government is a 
dysfunctional government as evidenced by the collapse of their military 
forces, but also as evidenced by the way they treated their Sunni 
population, giving them no space or voice in their government. That 
must change. That must change.
  The third step is that if in fact that begins to change and 
conditioned upon that change, the United States must continue to 
provide lethal assistance, to the extent possible, to help these Iraqi 
forces, particularly those concentrated in Baghdad, to repel and push 
back against this group. Right now it is my opinion, based on 
everything I know that they are not capable of doing that and in many 
instances are not willing to do that. Without our assistance, they will 
have no chance of doing that.
  Ultimately, while the use of force is never popular around here, I 
want to be blunt and clear about something. We are going to have to 
take some sort of action against this radical group. That is not the 
choice before us. The choice before us will be whether we take action 
now or we take action later, because what we can never allow is for 
another safe haven like pre-9/11 Afghanistan to emerge anywhere in the 
world, where terrorists can plan, practice, and ultimately conduct 
attacks against us here in the homeland or on our interests around the 
world.
  Therefore, I believe that we should not rule out and, in fact, 
conduct, to the extent they are effective, military actions from the 
air against this group wherever they are located.
  I do not take that lightly. I am not one to come to this floor and 
call for military engagement as a response to every conflict. I have 
opposed them in the past when they have made no sense or there was no 
clear plan moving forward. But this issue rises to that level of 
urgency. We must never forget the lessons of September 11, 2001, where 
a group of radical jihadist terrorists used a safe haven in Afghanistan 
to murder innocent Americans and carry out the most devastating attack 
in the history of our Nation.
  It was not that long ago that this happened. There are groups around 
the world that aspire to that now. What they need is a place to do that 
from. We cannot allow that place to emerge. There is no greater 
responsibility on the Federal Government than to provide for the 
security of our people. The choice before us will be whether we prevent 
it now or whether we deal with the consequences of it later. I urge the 
White House to take this matter with the importance that it deserves 
and to come to this Congress as soon as possible with a clear and 
concrete plan on how we are going to deal with it and engage in this 
emerging emergency situation that we now face and that threatens the 
national security of the United States and places a grave threat to the 
national security of our country in the years to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                          Veterans Health Care

  Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I appreciate an opportunity to speak on a 
bill we passed here yesterday, the veterans access reform bill. We 
passed it 93 to 3, which is amazing when you think about it--in this 
body--as we struggle to get issues in front of us and work on them. 
What we saw was an incredible bipartisan piece of legislation basically 
saying: We are for vets. We want to make sure that veterans have the 
best care they deserve and they earned fighting wars--not only the 
recent ones but in the past.
  I want to talk a little bit about the piece of legislation, and then 
I am going to talk about some pieces that are important to Alaska. I 
will show some examples here in a second. But I ultimately want to talk 
about what is left still ahead of us. As a member of the Veterans' 
Affairs Committee, it is not just about passing one bill and saying: We 
are done; we have done our chore; we have done our job. No, there is a 
lot more work ahead of us.
  This bill we passed is a bipartisan bill, with Democrats and 
Republicans coming together because veterans are not a partisan issue; 
it is an American issue. In my State it is an American-Alaskan issue; 
in the Presiding Officer's State, a Massachusetts issue. It is 
important for all of us to step to the plate and make sure we do the 
right thing.
  This now provides the VA Secretary the authority to dismiss those 
senior executives who are not performing, are not doing the jobs. But 
also it ensures that if there are situations, as we have heard and seen 
and then had shown to us, where there are people who falsified data, 
then they are going to be held accountable. As we know, recently we 
have heard the FBI is now reviewing some of those situations.
  Whoever is at fault and has done anything to falsify needs to be held 
accountable and brought to justice. But it also brings out an issue 
that we have been dealing with in Alaska for several years--an issue 
that when I ran for office I remember I called the ``Heroes Health 
Card'' because I thought it was important, no matter where you were as 
a veteran, you should be able to go and access health care all 
throughout Alaska. My State is a very rural State, very vast in its 
size, and where people are and where they live. It is not easy to 
describe until you see it or are there.
  Just for example, here in Anchorage, flying up here to Barrow is 700 
miles, a long distance. But if you lived in Barrow, and you were a 
veteran, you could not get health care there. A VA facility does not 
exist. You would have to come down here to Anchorage, and that is just 
for a clinic, because we do not have a VA hospital in Alaska. So then 
if you need hospital services, you would have to go to Seattle--long 
distances.
  So for several years we have worked on this issue. I continue to 
push. I brought General Shinseki out to Alaska, to rural Alaska, to 
show him the impact on veterans who live in rural Alaska. But yet 
across the street medical services provided by Indian Health Services 
through our Native health clinics were being delivered by our tribes--
incredible health care. But veterans could not utilize it.
  So I tried to show him that the care there is incredible, high 
quality. We need to be able to access this. It is all

[[Page 10022]]

paid with Federal dollars so why not figure out how to access it. Why 
not figure out how to maximize our public resources for the betterment 
of not only our Alaska Natives but also our veterans in Alaska? So we 
worked on an idea where today we have now agreements with 26-plus 
tribes. All of these black dots on this map show all the new areas that 
veterans can access health care if they want.
  This is another choice. It is not a requirement, but if they want to 
stay in their region, stay close to their homes, be part of their own 
health care system there, they can and the VA will reimburse them, 
reimburse the clinic so it is no money out-of-pocket for the Indian 
Health Service or tribes that deliver health care.
  For example, in Nome I was very proud when we debated a big issue a 
few years ago, trying to figure out how to deal with the stimulus bill 
and how to bring economic revival to our economy. One of those in that 
bill I voted for brought a new hospital to Nome, AK, run by a tribe--a 
$170 million hospital, but again 800 veterans in Nome, AK, could not 
access that hospital. They still had to fly to Anchorage or Seattle.
  But now those 800 veterans, Native or non-Native, can access that 
hospital, get care, and end up staying closer to home. All throughout 
Alaska now people can access Indian Health Services run by our tribes 
and delivering incredible services.
  Along with that, in Anchorage, we have a federally qualified health 
center that now also allows access for our veterans. Again, the bill we 
passed, the veterans access reform bill, took some of these examples we 
have been doing in Alaska and showing great success--not perfect but 
improving.
  To give an example of this next item--and these numbers fluctuate a 
little bit, but I want to give a general understanding of where we were 
and where we are. Before we had all of this integrated within the 
Indian tribal system--the Alaska tribal system delivering health care--
it used to be 1,000 people, almost 1,000 people on the waiting list; 
today, a few dozen. This changes, this fluctuates, don't get me wrong. 
So when people call me and say it is not 10, it is 50 or 5, it does 
fluctuate, but it is no longer the 1,000.
  In the waiting period, in the audit that was just done, as we all 
know in the 140 facilities they audited throughout the country, we, 
Alaska, our VA, was tied for first in the best response in regard to 
appointments on the waiting list. Because that was the big debate, how 
to improve the number of people who are on the waiting list because it 
is appalling--appalling--what has been happening in Arizona and other 
places. I have seen the list now through this audit, in some cases 
2,000, in some cases 3,000 on the waiting list, waiting for care.
  The bill we passed yesterday will help improve that, and the numbers 
for Alaska show we have an example, not perfect but yet improving 
significantly the care for our veterans.
  No. 1, appointments, appointments scheduled within 30 days or less.
  When we look at a couple of other pieces, for example, mental health, 
which is a new issue, growing significantly, new patient mental health 
average wait time in Alaska is in the top 6 percent. Again, it is a 
great record for us, but we would love to be No. 1 in that category, to 
be frank, and we are going to continue to strive to do that, but the 
way we have improved the system was to make sure we had more 
opportunities to access.
  The bill we passed yesterday, again, takes some of the great things 
we are doing in Alaska to show access. I think this will enhance the 
capacity for veterans all around the State.
  This is something that, again, when I campaigned on the Heroes Health 
Card, I believed we had this resource we could maximize, that we could 
move forward on, that we could make a difference for our veterans, and 
we are seeing it. When we look at this issue 1 year from now, we hope 
the model we have laid out in Alaska is not only in Alaska but across 
the country.
  I will say we need to also keep track, because when you deliver 
health care through our Indian Health Service Program--in our case the 
tribes of Alaska or through our federally qualified clinics--they can 
provide the health care per patient at a cheaper rate, and no 
disrespect to the private doctors who are out there whom we do contract 
with, the VA does. They are more expensive because they work in a 
different model, a different business model. That is understandable. 
But this is a more cost-effective way.
  Hopefully, by passing the bill we don't just say we passed the bill 
and we are done, but 6 months from now or 1 year from now we review the 
cost of delivering this health care to make sure we are getting the 
most cost benefit but also delivering quality care to our veterans, no 
matter where they live.
  As a matter of fact, 25 percent of veterans live in rural America. 
That means we have to make sure our federally qualified clinics have 
the right resources they need so that when a veteran walks in that 
door, they can get the care.
  I will say in the Anchorage ones--again, for people who don't know 
Alaska--the Federal clinics there, the one Anchorage neighborhood 
health center--when someone is enrolled as a veteran to utilize that 
facility for their primary care appointment, it is almost same day, in 
most cases almost same-day service--incredible. It is the same thing 
with our Southcentral facility health services. These are incredible 
clinics run by Alaska Native tribes in the Southcentral region. Again, 
same thing--same-day service if you are on the list. We want to make 
sure it is clear that once someone is on the list, they can get pretty 
good service, very direct service.
  Let me put that aside a minute and give a general comment about 
veterans and veterans services we need. Again, I am going to leave this 
up so people see it, but the veterans access reform bill was just 
another step for us to improve the services to veterans. This is just 
one of many things.
  One thing we did do on health care, the President and other Members 
remember when we had the shutdown, government services all stopped 
except VA health care, because when I first got here, there was a bill 
I cosponsored that gave advance appropriations.
  Why were advance appropriations important? So when government 
shutdowns occur, health care still gets delivered for our veterans. 
They shouldn't be subject to the politics of this place, and we made 
sure of that.
  But to be frank, we still have more work to do. I hear Members come 
down and start talking about disability claims, which still is a 
challenge for us. We still have a lot of work in this area to make sure 
we increase the capacity.
  I know as an appropriator we put more money into this system so we 
can have more capacity to shorten the time of disability claims and 
make sure we get these done in a fast manner.
  But we have to keep in mind, if we don't have advanced appropriations 
on that side of the equation, the benefits side of the VA, and there is 
a government shutdown, guess what happens: GI benefits stop, disability 
payment claims may not be processed in a timely manner, other benefits 
that individuals receive as a veteran get stopped.
  There is a bill pending, which I am very proud to be one of the prime 
sponsors of with the Republicans, both the House and the Senate, is a 
bipartisan bill. Every single veterans group supports it. It is 
important to improve the delivery system of the benefits side.
  The health care side, we did some work yesterday. We have been doing 
work in Alaska for the last few years. Now we need to work on the 
benefits side.
  There are many different bills out there, and a long list, working on 
homelessness that we need to keep focused on and making sure our 
benefits for our GI bill continue to move forward, helping our 
veterans. But I give you examples of a couple of people, and I want to 
speak about these case stories and then I will end. It is important to 
remind people of the work we did yesterday, the work we have been doing 
for years in Alaska, the results we are getting.
  This example is now woven into the veterans access reform bill we 
passed yesterday--and Alaska is a great example--but here are a couple 
of cases in Anchorage I received recently.

[[Page 10023]]

  One Anchorage veteran was in touch with my office and had been trying 
to get help from the VA since 1995 for an undiagnosed condition related 
to jet fuel exposure. Last week my office was able to get him an 
appointment immediately in order to get him service and have this 
looked at. He called to thank us. He is getting care and the 
appointments he needs and he appreciates this.
  I will say it is the job for our offices--all of our offices as 
Members--to do everything we can for veterans. But we want to make sure 
this veteran--when he walks into that clinic or facility, doesn't have 
to wait this long or be in these situations.
  Another veteran in Soldotna, with a back condition, about 150 miles 
away from Anchorage, which again is where we had the clinic for the 
VA--about a 3-hour drive in the mountains--needed to be seen closer to 
home. Again our office helped arrange it so he could get service right 
there, so he can get service closer to home.
  It is important we look at these, and I see these examples all the 
time that we are working on every single day. I run into veterans all 
across Alaska who thank us for the work we do to make sure they have 
the access and capacity to get their benefits or their health care.
  I am going to end by saying that there is no better job here than 
working with the veterans. It is something I enjoy--77,000 veterans in 
Alaska, the highest per capita in the Nation. Every day I run into a 
veteran who may have an issue or is just thanking us for the work or 
thanking this country for the service--what they get and the benefits 
they receive.
  Yesterday was an example of what the Senate can do with veterans, 
come together unified, negotiate but never forget our principal job is 
to take care of the American people the best we can in the services we 
should render, and in this case it is for our veterans.
  Again, Alaska is an incredible example--not perfect, let me be clear 
about that, and the numbers fluctuate, but at the end of the day the 
trend lines are the right trend lines. They are moving in the right 
way.
  The bill we passed yesterday had some aspects of what we are doing in 
Alaska. It makes me proud to say Alaskan veterans should be proud that 
we are doing not only the best we can, but we are using our examples to 
help veterans all across this country, and I think that is a great 
statement.
  We have more work to do. It is an honor to be here and explain once 
again what we are doing in Alaska and also yesterday being able to vote 
on that piece of legislation.
  I know the House bill is very close to ours and we will have a 
compromise bill and veterans will get better care tomorrow than they 
are getting today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                    Appropriations Committee Markup

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am on the Senate floor, but I should 
have had the opportunity today to be at an Appropriations Committee 
meeting.
  We were scheduled this morning to mark up--that means to consider and 
vote on--the labor, health and human services bill for the next fiscal 
year. The labor, health and human services bill is one of the most 
important pieces of legislation we have.
  It is the bill that spells out the priorities of the American people 
as worked out by their elected officials on everything from National 
Institutes of Health to Pell Grants for college students.
  Passing an appropriations bill is an appropriate and important check 
on executive spending. It is one of our most important constitutional 
responsibilities. It is one we haven't been exercising very well over 
the last 4 years. Even though the Appropriations Committee has approved 
most of the bills to go to the floor, the majority leader has not 
brought most of the bills to the floor for our consideration.
  In 2 of the last 4 years we considered zero appropriations bills on 
the floor. One of those years we considered one and another year we 
considered five.
  I wasn't at the committee meeting this morning because our markup was 
indefinitely postponed. I asked why, and I couldn't get a clear answer, 
but apparently it was because some Senators don't want to vote on 
difficult or tough amendments.
  I have repeated a certain line a lot in the past couple of years. I 
am from Tennessee, so I have said that being in the Senate and not 
being allowed to vote on amendments is like being asked to join the 
Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing. That is what we do. I 
mean, this body, described as the one authentic piece of genius in the 
constitutional system of the United States, was created to have 100 men 
and women who come to the Senate and who have the opportunity to have 
extended debate on important issues until we come to a consensus. 
Sometimes we do that in a terrific way.
  Even recently we have done that in important ways; for example, on 
the student loan agreement that we reached last year which cut nearly 
in half interest rates on all undergraduate loans, which are 85 percent 
of student loans. That was the result of an extended debate, working 
with the Republican House and a Democratic President. The government 
worked the way it was supposed to.
  Coming to the Senate floor and having a say, offering a bill, 
offering amendments, and having a vote is the job of Senators. It is 
not so important that it is my say or my vote, it is the fact that this 
is what I was hired to do by my constituents, each one of us was. So we 
have a right to have our say on the issues--whether it is Iran, student 
loans, Ukraine, or health care. It is what we are expected to do. So I 
have objected to the fact that we have fallen into a pattern in this 
body of not having amendments. Senator Barrasso of Wyoming has actually 
counted the number of rollcall votes on amendments since last July. He 
has discovered that Republicans offered only nine amendments that 
actually had a rollcall vote in that entire period of time. Then he 
counted what the Democrats have offered. Our friends on the other side 
of the aisle have offered more than 600 amendments, and they have only 
had 7 rollcall votes.
  But today we have reached a new level of obstruction because it seems 
that our friends in the Democratic majority are moving the gag rule--
which has existed on the floor of the Senate--from the Senate floor to 
the committee room. They have said we are going to indefinitely 
postpone a markup of a bill from one of the most important 
subcommittees in the Senate to decide how to spend more than a hundred 
billion dollars, apparently, because some Senators don't want to vote 
on tough amendments.
  These aren't extraneous amendments. These aren't political exercises. 
These are relevant amendments critical to the process of setting 
spending priorities, and well within the scope of the bill.
  So I have no alternative but to bring my tough amendments--the 
amendments that I planned to offer this morning at the markup--to the 
Senate floor, at least to talk about them in the hope that soon I will 
have a chance to offer them in the committee.
  I am going to talk about four amendments I had planned to offer this 
morning--important, relevant amendments, part of what we are supposed 
to do. Senators shouldn't be afraid to vote on them. If so, we 
shouldn't be here, because that is what we do.
  Amendment No. 1. My first amendment would reverse the trend toward a 
national school board for elementary and secondary education by 
protecting a State's control over its academic standards and tests.
  My amendment does this by prohibiting the U.S. Department of 
Education--where I used to be the Secretary--from exercising any 
influence over the academic standards States use to define what 
students should know and be able to do, as well as the test States use 
to determine whether students have met those standards.
  It also prohibits the Department from requiring or incentivizing 
States to adopt common standards and tests as a condition of an award 
of a Federal grant or a contract, or by providing additional points or 
a preference in a

[[Page 10024]]

competitive grant program, or as a condition of approval for waivers of 
requirements under No Child Left Behind or any Federal law.
  In other words, this amendment directs the Federal Government to keep 
its sticky fingers off State standards and not to interfere with the 
hard work States are doing to raise expectations for our students.
  This is not a new issue. In 1992, 22 years ago, I was the U.S. 
Secretary of Education for President George H.W. Bush--who celebrated 
his 90th birthday today by jumping out of an airplane once again--a 
remarkable event. Happy birthday, President Bush. Democrats in Congress 
wrote an education bill in 1992 that would have set Federal standards 
not only for academic content but also for how that content should be 
delivered to students.
  As Education Secretary, I wrote a memo to the President. I advised 
him to veto the bill if it came to his desk, because, I said then, it:

       . . . creates at least the beginnings of a national school 
     board that could make day-to-day school decisions on 
     curriculum, discipline, teacher training, textbooks, and 
     classroom materials. . . . A federal recipe dictating how to 
     operate a local school board does not make schools better.

  I wrote this to President Bush in 1992. The President told the 
Congress he would veto the bill if it reached his desk. Fortunately, it 
never did.
  The amendment that I would like to have offered this morning should 
not be necessary because Federal law already includes a number of 
specific limitations on the Federal Government's involvement in 
education standards and curriculum.
  For example, section 9527 of the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act prohibits any employee of the Federal Government from mandating, 
directing or controlling a State, local school district or school's 
curriculum, program of instruction or allocation of State and local 
resources.
  The Department of Education is prohibited from using any funding, 
says the law, to endorse, approve or sanction any curriculum of 
instruction used in the elementary or secondary school. That is the law 
today.
  Furthermore, the law today prohibits requiring any State to have 
academic content or student academic achievement standards approved by 
the Federal Government in order to receive funding under the law, with 
the exception of the requirement that States must demonstrate that they 
have adopted challenging standards in their title I plan.
  By including these prohibitions Congress has made it clear that it 
does not want a national school board--that primary responsibility for 
decisions relating to educating students rest with States and local 
communities, teachers, and parents.
  But this administration has used the combination of No Child Left 
Behind, Race to the Top, and waivers from No Child Left Behind to in 
effect convert itself into a national school board, making decisions 
that States and local communities ought to make for themselves--
particularly decisions about standards and tests.
  Under Race to the Top, the Department gave additional points to 
States which participated in the development of and adopted the Common 
Core standards, using the prospect of receiving Federal funds to coerce 
States into joining the Common Core.
  Now, the Department might say it didn't write the words ``Common 
Core'' into their grant application, but Common Core then was the only 
game in town that could meet the requirements for those points.
  More recently, the administration has used its waiver authority under 
No Child Left Behind to impose on States new requirements about 
standards that are not contemplated in and, I believe, prohibited by 
Federal law. So this amendment would strictly prohibit that overreach.
  My second amendment would avoid the creation of a taxpayer-funded 
popularity contest by preventing the Department of Education from 
developing a rating system for our Nation's 6,000 colleges and 
universities.
  So my first amendment would prevent the Secretary from becoming 
chairman of a national school board, and my second amendment would 
prevent the Secretary from claiming the role of national czar of higher 
education. It is a simple amendment to end what I see as a misguided 
errand initiated by the President and underway at the Department of 
Education. That is the rating of our colleges and universities by the 
Federal Government.
  This amendment would prohibit the Department of Education from using 
any Federal funding to develop, refine, publish or implement a college 
rating system. In August of 2013, President Obama directed the 
Department of Education to rate each of our Nation's more than 6,000 
colleges and universities based on their affordability and outcomes 
such as graduation rates and earnings. I am all for ensuring that 
parents and students have the information they need to make good 
college choices, but picking winners and losers with a rating system is 
not an appropriate role for the Federal Government in Washington, DC. 
Here is what an expert in education policy at the Brookings 
Institution--not exactly a hotbed of rightwing propaganda--had to say:

       There is a clear case to be made for the federal government 
     using its authority to gather data like these for 
     postsecondary institutions that receive taxpayer funding, but 
     little precedent for the government producing ratings.

  The Brookings scholar goes on to say:

       The Securities and Exchange Commission regulates stocks and 
     bonds, but leaves it to private organizations to rate them. 
     The Department of Transportation sets standards for the 
     calculation of cars' gas mileage, but it doesn't opine on 
     whether a Ford is better than a Toyota. The Food and Drug 
     Administration decides which pharmaceuticals can be sold in 
     the U.S., but it does not say whether Advil is better for a 
     headache than Tylenol.

  In other words, this is not the job of the Federal Government.
  We don't need the Federal Government making these judgments for 22 
million college students. What we need is the information so Americans 
can make these judgments for ourselves.
  I also have serious practical concerns about the Department's ability 
even to begin this effort. I believe it will fall on its face when they 
try to write it. We already know the Department is struggling. They 
have had to delay the release of the draft ratings system from the 
spring to sometime in the fall. If they ever do move forward, I have 
little confidence in their ability to get it right.
  The Federal Government simply can't develop ratings that account for 
the diversity of our higher education system. We have 6,000 
institutions of higher education of all kinds Nashville's auto diesel 
college, Notre Dame, Randolph-Macon, Yeshiva, Berea College, Dyersburg 
Community College, Harvard. All of these are different. We need 
information. We don't need the government issuing ratings.
  My third amendment would rein in the Obama administration's out-of-
control National Labor Relations Board by stopping it from requiring 
employers to give labor unions their employees' personal email 
addresses and cell phone numbers and from forcing employers to let 
employees use employer-owned and operated email systems to campaign for 
a union.
  Since 1966 the NLRB has required employers to provide a union with a 
list of names and home addresses of employees eligible to vote in a 
union representation election. This is called an Excelsior List.
  In February of this year, the NLRB reproposed expanding the Excelsior 
List in its ambush elections proposed rule. Now, ambush elections are 
another Obama administration initiative which would shorten the time 
from the union's request to call an election to when the election is 
held to as little as 10 days.
  But here is the NLRB's Excelsior List proposal: It would require 
employers to include voter-eligible employees' personal telephone 
numbers, email addresses, work locations, shift times, and job 
classifications on the Excelsior List. They rejected a suggestion I 
made that at least an employee ought to be able to opt out of sharing 
this information.

[[Page 10025]]

  We have had many examples of unions violating people's privacy and 
even harassing them.
  For example, in 2010, agents of Communications Workers of America 
Local 1103 in Connecticut used personal information they obtained about 
one woman who did not support the union to sign her up for hundreds of 
unsolicited and unwanted magazines and consumer products.
  This NLRB-proposed rule has a lot of opposition. Senator Graham was 
intending this morning to offer in our markup a similar amendment that 
would prevent funds from going to implement any of the so-called ambush 
election rule which this is a part of.
  As I have said before, the NLRB has become far too politicized under 
recent administrations. It didn't start with the Obama administration, 
but it has gotten worse with this administration, as it has moved 
toward the side of union advocacy with such things as ambush elections 
and micro-unions and undermining State right-to-work laws.
  The National Labor Relations Board should be an umpire rather than an 
advocate.
  The fourth amendment I would have offered this morning--had our 
subcommittee markup proceeded as it had been scheduled, and had it not 
been postponed apparently because some Senators didn't want to take 
``tough votes''--would simply require the Obama administration to be 
straightforward with the public about the Affordable Care Act by 
reporting basic facts on the Federally-run insurance exchange, which is 
running the exchange for 36 States--facts such as the number of people 
signed up and making premium payments.
  I introduced similar legislation last year. The House of 
Representatives passed that legislation in January by a bipartisan vote 
of 259 to 154. A total of 33 House Democrats voted for it. It is very 
simple, noncontroversial, and shouldn't be considered tough.
  It would simply require the Obama administration to provide weekly 
reports during open enrollment--which now runs from November to 
February--reports to Congress, to States, and to the public about the 
Federal exchange, including such easily tracked data as the number of 
individuals who have visited the site, the number who have successfully 
enrolled, their zip codes, the level of coverage they have obtained, 
and also at least monthly a list of the navigators and the brokers 
operating in each State. This is important especially to serve 
disadvantaged Americans.
  This isn't complicated. This is the Internet age. Even before the 
Internet age, McDonald's could tell us how many hamburgers it made each 
day, and RCA could tell us how many Elvis Presley albums it had left on 
their shelves.
  In May Politico reported the administration stopped releasing the 
barebones reports it had been providing the public every month. This is 
troubling.
  Many Americans can continue to sign up for coverage through special 
enrollment periods, but we won't know how many Americans have continued 
paying their premiums after the first month of coverage. We will have 
no way of knowing the final number of confirmed enrollments.
  So these are the four amendments I had expected I would be offering 
and debating today in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Instead, I 
am here late in the afternoon on the Senate floor because some Senators 
must be more worried about their reelection campaigns than about the 
process of governing and setting priorities.
  If we are not willing to do what we are elected to do--no one is 
making any of us be here.
  I hope the markup we had planned today will be rescheduled. I plan to 
offer these amendments then. I hope they will be voted on by the 
committee, and I hope I will have the opportunity to represent the 
people of Tennessee who have sent me here to represent their views.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.


                           Student Loan Debt

  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, for the first time in our Nation's 
history the total amount of student loan debt has exceeded the total 
amount of credit card debt. This very real problem weighs heavily on 
families in my home State of New Mexico.
  Last year Congress narrowly stopped the student loan interest rate 
hike from going into effect--a rate hike that would have doubled 
student loan interest rates. As a result, undergraduate students 
borrowing this year are able to take advantage of reasonable student 
loan rates. But students who borrowed before this agreement could be 
paying rates as high as 9 percent. Those who pursued an education to 
get ahead are literally starting out from behind.
  Student loan debt is proving to be a debilitating impediment to 
achieving the American dream.
  Recently, I met a working mother in southern New Mexico who told me 
about her family's struggle to raise their children while paying her 
husband's student loans from a degree he had earned more than two 
decades ago.
  Another woman shared her story of going back to school to become a 
teacher. She is a single mom who wanted to make a better life for 
herself and her daughter. She got a degree but not without acquiring 
more than $40,000 in student loan debt. She worries that she will be 
paying her loans off well into retirement. As a parent, she worries for 
her daughter who will be entering college and fears that she has no 
choice but to take out loans to pay for her education.
  Unfortunately, these stories are all too common today. Outstanding 
student loan debt in America totals more than $1.2 trillion--trillion 
with a ``t.'' In New Mexico, students are graduating with an average of 
nearly $18,000 in debt.
  Outstanding balances not only affect families working to pay those 
loans, it affects the entire American economy as well. Because of this 
debt, many are unable to buy a home, to start a business, to save for 
retirement or even start a family. In today's economy we should be 
eliminating the obstacles that keep Americans from earning the 
education they need to get ahead. College should not be a luxury; it 
should be an opportunity all Americans can at least afford to pursue.
  The student loan refinancing legislation that was on the floor this 
week would have helped address this problem of skyrocketing student 
loan debt by allowing graduates to refinance and put more money into 
productive use and strengthen our economy as a whole. However, our 
colleagues across the aisle decided to filibuster this legislation. 
They don't seem to understand that crushing student loan debt is a 
serious issue that forces many Americans to put their American dreams 
on hold.
  Higher education is one of the most important investments any person 
can make in their own future. From my perspective, making college 
affordable is an investment in America's future. Republicans should 
know this and even recently helped to do something about it. Just last 
year Democrats and Republicans came together in Congress to prevent a 
student loan interest rate hike that would have doubled student loan 
rates. This was a great money-saving piece of news for students taking 
out new loans. However, there are still approximately 134,000 New 
Mexicans--just in my small State of 2 million people, there are 134,000 
New Mexicans who would benefit from passing this newest legislation 
which would allow them to access those same student loan rates.
  We had an opportunity to come together to address skyrocketing 
student loan debt, and instead our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle chose to leave families, students, and really the American 
economy behind.
  A college education opens the doors of opportunity. It provides an 
avenue into the middle class for families. College graduates are nearly 
twice as likely to find work as those with only a high school diploma, 
and they will earn nearly $1 million more over the course of a 
lifetime.
  We should be willing to give our aspiring college students a fair 
shot. Senate Republicans should reconsider their

[[Page 10026]]

priorities and allow us to at least debate this student loan 
refinancing legislation, to end their filibuster so that we can move 
forward, so that we can provide immediate relief to student loan 
borrowers and put that money to work in growing the American economy.
  I would yield back the rest of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                             Tax Extenders

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Just last week the majority leader gave his view that 
tax extenders as an issue is dead in the Senate until the lameduck 
session. I presume that means we will have a lameduck session. The 
majority leader blames this on Republicans, the minority in the Senate, 
but as you all know, the majority leader is uniquely situated under our 
Senate rules to determine what legislation will be considered on the 
Senate floor.
  The majority leader's excuse that was given for not proceeding to 
extenders before a lameduck session is that we Republicans are seeking 
to offer amendments unrelated to tax extenders. Of course, this excuse 
simply does not fly. Even an introductory report on Senate procedure 
from the Congressional Research Service will tell all Senators that 
there is no ``standing rule or general requirement that the amendments 
offered by Senators on the floor must be germane or relevant to the 
bill being considered.''
  The CRS report states:

       The right to offer non-germane amendments is 
     extraordinarily important because it permits Senators to 
     present issues to the Senate for debate and decision without 
     regard to the judgments of the Senate's committees or the 
     scheduling decisions and preferences of its majority leader.

  The majority leader has sought to circumvent the open amendment 
process by blocking amendments by filling the amendment tree. This 
allows the majority leader to effectively decide what, if any, 
amendments ought to receive consideration here on the Senate floor. 
Essentially, this allows the majority leader to impose his own will at 
the expense of the will of the Senate as a whole. Another way to say 
it: The majority leader decides what 99 other Senators can offer as 
amendments.
  The real reason the majority leader does not want to bring extenders 
back is that he is concerned that Members of his party might have to 
take tough votes in an election year. Of course, in a parliamentary 
system, this is a poor excuse for putting off considering legislation 
that has broad bipartisan support, and this extenders bill does have 
broad bipartisan support. This approach puts politics before 
constituents.
  Delaying tax extenders legislation until the lameduck session has 
real consequences for our constituents. We know from previous years 
what has happened when tax legislation is not passed in a satisfactory 
amount of time. Late action on tax extenders poses significant tax 
administration burdens that cause headaches and hardships for millions 
of taxpayers. When we fail to act in a timely manner, tax forms are not 
ready and refunds are delayed. We owe it to our constituents to see to 
it that these added complications are not a factor this year. Tax 
season is already unpleasant enough without our adding to it by failing 
to do our job in a timely fashion.
  While many view tax extenders as benefiting businesses, the truth is 
the delay of widely used individual tax provisions will impact millions 
of taxpayers. I will give a few examples.
  Three of the most widely used tax provisions are the State and local 
sales tax deduction, claimed by over 11 million returns in the latest 
year for which we have statistics--2011; the above-the-line deduction 
for teachers' expenses, claimed on over 3.8 million tax returns in that 
year, 2011; and the college tuition deduction, which was claimed on 
about 2 million tax returns. These 3 provisions alone give us over 16 
million reasons--because of 16 million taxpayers being affected--to act 
now to ensure that we don't subject these taxpayers to needless delays 
and complications this coming filing season.
  These 16 million tax filers should provide more than enough reason 
for not putting off tax extender legislation until the lameduck, but if 
you are in need of another reason, think of the small businesses that 
are anxiously looking on and wondering what we are going to do about 
the expiration of the enhanced expensing rules under section 179. I am 
sure I am not the only one hearing from small business owners and from 
farmers who are putting off purchasing that new truck or tractor 
because they do not know the fate of this provision. This is bad for 
economic growth, bad for jobs.
  Then there is the lapse in the renewable energy incentives that 
support millions of jobs not only in my State of Iowa but in many other 
States across our country. The expiration of these provisions has 
already hampered the strides made toward a viable, self-sustainable 
renewable energy and fuel sector. Delaying extension of these important 
provisions is hurting the economy and costing jobs.
  A biofuels organization found that nearly 80 percent of the U.S. 
biodiesel producers have scaled back production this year. Sixty-six 
percent of the biodiesel producers have reduced their workforce and 
anticipate cutting jobs. This is a direct result of the policy 
uncertainties here in Washington, DC, including the expiration of the 
biodiesel tax incentive.
  The only thing standing in the way of passing the extenders package 
here in the Senate is decisions made by the majority leader and getting 
an agreement on a handful of reasonable amendments.
  The delay in passing the extenders package is harming a whole range 
of renewable energy efforts. A letter delivered to every Senator from 
about 200 clean energy businesses urged quick passage of the bill.
  The letter stated:

       The lack of timely action to extend these provisions 
     injects instability and uncertainty into the economy and 
     weakens confidence in the employment marketplace. Moreover, 
     the extension of the expired provisions should not be delayed 
     until the end of the year since companies are making 
     decisions right now related to taxes that will have an 
     immediate impact on the economy.

  I would encourage all of those who support this bill to urge the 
majority leader to bring it back and allow for a fair amendment 
process. Could the Senate majority leader possibly argue that it is 
more important to protect Senators from tough votes than to move 
forward on clean energy and job creation? For such an important piece 
of legislation, there is no legitimate reason for the majority leader 
to refuse to bring extenders to the floor for an open and honest 
debate.
  It has been quite a while since we have had a relatively open 
amendment process on major tax legislation. Because of this, many 
Senators view this bill as their one shot at getting tax priorities 
they have considered on the floor. There is no reason that an agreement 
cannot be reached that will provide opportunities to Members on both 
sides of the aisle to offer those amendments. As a former chairman and 
ranking member of the Finance Committee, this Senator knows this can be 
difficult, but it is more than doable.
  I remember when Senator Baucus and I regularly worked out an 
amendment process on tax bills. Usually this would consist of 
alternating votes on a block of 10 or so Democratic and Republican 
amendments so each side was treated fairly. A tax bill that comes to my 
mind as an illustration of this process is a bill entitled Jumpstart 
Our Business Strength Act or, as we use the acronym, JOBS.
  Like the extenders package, the JOBS Act had broad bipartisan support 
and ultimately passed the Senate 92 to 5. Though it had bipartisan 
support, there was no shortage of Members from the other side seeking 
to offer their amendments. Many of these amendments were in no way 
related to tax, although the JOBS Act was a tax bill.
  As the bill's chief sponsor and floor manager, I had hoped to keep 
amendments somewhat relevant--at least related to tax. However, the 
then Democratic minority pushed for votes on everything from overtime 
laws to trade adjustment assistance to unemployment insurance.
  All of these amendments were political in nature. They were intended 
to

[[Page 10027]]

make Republicans take tough votes. At the time, then minority leader--
now Majority Leader--Reid vigorously defended the right of the minority 
to get votes on these and other amendments that were entirely 
nonrelevant and nongermane. We Republicans took those votes because we 
wanted to get things done. We wanted to get a very important tax bill 
passed. That is what the American people need right now--new leaders 
who want to get things done.
  Yet today we were told Republicans are unreasonable for even seeking 
tax amendments to tax legislation. But it is not just Members of the 
minority who would like to offer amendments. Members on the other side 
filed nearly as many amendments as Members of the minority, but under 
the procedure set by the majority leader, even Members of his own party 
were not able to offer amendments. We could have been debating 
amendments to an extender bill this week. Instead, we wasted time on 
other pieces of legislation that were designed to fail, so the other 
side could score political points.
  We were all sent here by our constituents to represent them in the 
legislative process. So let's legislate, which means debating and 
offering amendments. A bipartisan bill, such as the tax extenders bill, 
would be a perfect opportunity to show our constituents our ability to 
work together and get things done.
  I call upon the leadership of the Senate to bring the tax extenders 
bill back to the floor and to allow for reasonable amendments that 
permit individual Senators of both parties to have a say in crafting 
this legislation.


                           Kadzik Nomination

  Madam President, I wish to speak about an issue I spoke to earlier 
this week that I feel is so important I want to remind colleagues of 
its importance to me and what I think is an important issue for the 
oversight work of the Senate.
  On Monday I explained my opposition to the nomination of Peter Kadzik 
to be the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs at the 
Justice Department.
  In my view, the nominee's record demonstrates contempt for 
congressional oversight. He has made a habit of providing evasive, 
nonresponsive, and plainly insufficient answers to congressional 
inquiries over the years. That practice alone disqualifies him from 
heading up the Legislative Affairs Office. That office has had a 
chronic problem with credibility in recent years--going back and forth 
with Mr. Kadzik as well.
  Specifically, I am referring to the false denials regarding Operation 
Fast and Furious, which Mr. Kadzik's predecessor made and eventually 
had to retract. So it is pretty evident to me that this administration 
is sending a message to all of us in the Senate by nominating an 
individual with a track record as abysmal as Mr. Kadzik. That message 
is this: Expect more of the same. That is quite a message from the 
self-professed most transparent administration in history which, quite 
frankly, has not turned out to be so transparent.
  But there is a lot more at stake regarding Mr. Kadzik's nomination 
than restoring credibility to the Legislative Affairs Office--a lot 
more. As we all know, at the beginning of this year the President 
boasted that he had ``a pen and a phone'' and that he intended to use 
it. What he meant, of course, was that he would bypass the legislative 
process and proceed with aggressive and unilateral executive action.
  So in January I called on the Attorney General to disclose the 
opinions and memoranda from the Justice Department's Office of Legal 
Counsel, providing the legal justification for this President's 
unilateral executive action.
  Four months later, Mr. Kadzik replied to me in a 1-page response. He 
said, in short, he would not disclose those legal opinions. But he said 
if I had additional questions regarding the legality of the President's 
actions, I should let him know. That was May 20. Well, 11 days later, 
on Saturday, March 31, we learned that the President had flouted the 
congressional notification provisions of the National Defense 
Authorization Act.
  This latest example of the administration's flagrant disregard for 
its legal obligations to submit to congressional oversight has 
dominated the headlines. I am referring, of course, to the 
administration's failure to notify Congress of its plan to release the 
so-called ``Taliban Dream Team'' from Guantanamo last week.
  As every Senator knows, the National Defense Authorization Act--a law 
this President has signed--required the administration to notify key 
congressional committees at least 30 days before arranging the release 
of a prisoner from Guantanamo. The law enumerates exactly what that 
notification needs to address.
  Specifically, the administration was legally required to explain to 
Congress why the release is in the national security interest of our 
country. The administration was legally required to explain to Congress 
what action it had undertaken to mitigate the risk of reengagement of 
such terrorists by re-releasing the detainees.
  The law requires these explanations and other disclosures because the 
Members of this body have an independent responsibility to ensure the 
national security of the United States. And, of course, we take this 
responsibility seriously. Each one of us swore an oath to protect and 
defend the Constitution--the same oath that the President took. 
Unfortunately, this administration has locked us out of the process 
that the National Defense Authorization Act requires. I know I need to 
be more clear for most of you.
  The history of section 1035 and the negotiations surrounding it make 
it plain that Congress included those provisions because it wanted to 
avoid release of prisoners like this one. So congressional opposition 
should not exactly come as a surprise to this administration.
  This administration broke not only the law but also the promise it 
made in 2013 when White House Press Secretary Jay Carney promised that 
the administration ``would not make any decisions about the transfer of 
any detainees without consulting with Congress and without doing so in 
accordance with U.S. law.'' The administration knows it broke the law. 
Certain Senators on our Select Committee on Intelligence have even 
reportedly received apologies from the administration officials for not 
notifying them.
  I don't think apologies are enough, and I don't think this 
administration takes seriously its legal obligation to consult with us 
before acting. Take the recent statement made by the Deputy White House 
Press Secretary on June 9. He said that ``this administration continues 
to be committed to coordinating with our partners in Congress.'' But 
the law doesn't require mere ``coordination.'' Coordination under the 
law is not good enough.
  The President is required by law to meet certain obligations, and he 
recklessly ignores those obligations. The President is required by the 
Constitution--a document the President claims to know a lot about 
because he was a constitutional law professor--to ``take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed.'' Yet we all know by now that this 
President picks and chooses which laws to enforce.
  This is not how our constitutional system is designed. The President 
is not in power to ignore the law. So ``coordination,'' as the Deputy 
Press Secretary said, is not good enough. We need compliance with the 
law. This administration needs to commit--on the record--that going 
forward it intends to comply with the National Defense Authorization 
Act so that another one of these stealth detainee releases never 
happens again.
  With the exception of the majority leader, this administration has 
kept every Member of the Senate and the House in the dark about 
releasing five of the most dangerous terrorists we were holding at 
Guantanamo. Even the majority leader was not given the 30-day notice 
the law requires. So it is clear that not a single Senator was notified 
in compliance with the law prior to the release of the Taliban Five. It 
is likewise clear that not a single Senator received an explanation 
regarding national security and risk mitigation

[[Page 10028]]

that the law requires in advance of releases.
  But the failure to notify us in Congress in accordance with the law 
does not relieve this administration of its responsibility to justify 
the releases. There is a lot about this ordeal that is extremely 
concerning. Part of what is so troublesome is that this administration 
can't even seem to get its story straight regarding why it ignored the 
law. The justifications the administration has offered publicly thus 
far have shifted dramatically from one day to the next day.
  I will show how the shift has taken place and the justifications that 
have been presented to the public.
  Shortly, after the release of the Taliban Five on June 1, the 
administration sent--of all people--National Security Advisor Susan 
Rice back to the Sunday talk shows--in Benghazi fashion--to explain the 
administration's rationale.
  Adviser Rice told CNN that the ``acute urgency'' of an unspecified 
``health condition'' that Sergeant Bergdahl was suffering from had 
forced the President to act without notifying Congress. We haven't 
heard much publicly about the acute medical emergency since then. In 
fact, a number of my colleagues have expressed skepticism at what 
little information the Pentagon has provided publicly regarding 
Sergeant Bergdahl's physical condition. But since the administration 
has said it was an emergency because the terrorists had threatened 
Bergdahl's life, apparently that was the medical emergency.
  But now the story has changed. First, on Monday, following the 
releases, according to press reports, the White House called the chair 
of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to apologize for its so-
called oversight in failing to consult with Congress. So they meant to 
inform Congress about the releases but didn't because it was an 
``oversight.''
  Is that the story now? No. It didn't take long for the story to 
change. The White House then offered a new explanation.
  On Tuesday, the Deputy White House Press Secretary said that the 
release was ``a secret military mission in which disclosures of the 
mission could put into jeopardy not just the life of Sergeant Bergdahl 
but also the lives of the American servicemen who were involved in the 
mission, so discretion on this matter was important.''
  Let's think about the new justification--this one I just quoted--
let's think about it for a moment. The White House is saying 
essentially that disclosure of the operational details concerning the 
physical transfer of Sergeant Bergdahl could have jeopardized the 
mission. But the White House's justification is totally beside the 
point. To my knowledge, no Senator has claimed that the administration 
had a legal obligation under section 1035 to disclose the specific 
operational details of the transfer to our relevant committees. Section 
1035 doesn't even require that. On the contrary, the law requires the 
administration to explain its rationale for the release in terms of 
national security and risk mitigation, not operational details.
  So this particular justification is, of course, a colossal red 
herring, and it wasn't the last of the shifting justifications this 
administration has offered. Listen to the next one.
  The administration claimed it simply ran out of time to notify us. On 
Tuesday the administration reportedly claimed that it knew only 1 day 
in advance that the transfer would take place and only an hour in 
advance about where it would happen. And then on Wednesday Defense 
Secretary Hagel told the House Armed Services Committee that the 
administration had only 96 hours from the time the deal was made to 
actually release Sergeant Bergdahl.
  Again, both of these justifications miss the point. It is clear that 
the negotiations preceding the deal were in motion for months. 
According to the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the 
administration reported that it had been engaged in negotiations with 
the Taliban since January 2014. So the administration had weeks--maybe 
even months--to communicate to Congress that it was in active 
negotiations that might result in the exchange deal in the near future. 
That, of course, never happened.
  But even that wasn't the last of the shifting justifications. On 
Wednesday Defense Secretary Hagel told the House Armed Services 
Committee that the administration couldn't notify Congress because of 
the risk of a leak. Secretary Hagel said that the Qatari Government--
which apparently was acting as a middleman in these negotiations with 
the Taliban--threatened to end all negotiations if details of the deal 
leaked.
  It is pretty obvious that this justification doesn't wash either. 
Press reports indicate that the administration told Congress that 
anywhere between 80 to 90 members of the executive branch knew about 
the release of the Taliban five before it happened. That number 
includes officials in the State Department, the Department of Homeland 
Security, the White House, and the Department of Defense. If that many 
individuals--80 or 90 people in this town--are in the loop, the 
administration's stated concern about a leak just doesn't make any 
sense. The White House could keep all of those officials in the loop, 
but somehow it couldn't pick up the phone and call the chair and vice 
chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
  Frankly, as we have seen over the last few years, when information is 
leaked to the press, the leak usually originates in the executive 
branch and more often than not from the White House itself. So it seems 
pretty clear that the administration is not being candid with us or 
with the American people about why it broke the law and locked the 
representatives of the people of the United States out of the process, 
contrary to what the law says.
  So the bottom line is this: The White House ignored a Federal law 
that the President signed and that the White House Press Secretary 
promised it would follow. Yet the White House can't even get its story 
straight regarding why the law was ignored.
  It is for these reasons--getting back to the point about the Office 
of Legal Counsel and Mr. Kadzik's nomination to be head of the Office 
of Legislative Affairs--it is for these reasons that I wrote to the 
Attorney General last week and called on the Office of Legal Counsel to 
release any and all materials concerning the legal justification for 
the detainees' release that the Department of Justice provided to the 
administration. It is the Office of Legal Counsel's job to look at 
every Presidential action and Executive order and decision to see if it 
complies with the law. And then it is my approach that if some lawyers 
are telling the President what he can legally do or not do, 
constitutionally do or not do, according to the Constitution, why 
shouldn't the American people know about it?
  So this all becomes more important with each passing day, as the 
White House keeps offering new explanations for why it broke the law.
  We know the Justice Department provides legal advice on this question 
to the Defense Department because that is one of the very first things 
the administration said publicly about the deal. On June 1 Susan Rice 
told CNN that the Defense Department consulted with the Justice 
Department before the decision to move forward was made. We need to 
know about the nature of that consultation. We need to know what legal 
justification the Department of Justice provided that would permit the 
administration to ignore its legal duties to notify Congress and to 
inform us of the reasons for the release. And, importantly, we need to 
know what specific facts on which the Justice Department based its 
legal analysis.
  In other words, with all of these shifting explanations we have been 
hearing about the factual basis for the decision, which one of those 
many was provided to the Justice Department? Did they tell the Justice 
Department: We don't have time to tell Congress. If so, did they tell 
them that these negotiations had been ongoing for months, as they 
appear to have been? Did these executive branch people tell the Justice 
Department that Sergeant

[[Page 10029]]

Bergdahl was, as Susan Rice claims, suffering from an acute condition 
that required the administration to take immediate action? Did the 
Justice Department take the view that the administration did not have 
to comply with the law because of the President's powers under article 
II of the Constitution, notwithstanding the fact that the White House 
had already promised it would comply or was none of this even 
considered? Was all of this just an ``oversight,'' as the White House 
apparently told the chair of the Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence or was it that they didn't have to comply because they 
didn't trust the members of the select committee to keep a secret or 
should we expect that yet another justification will be forthcoming?
  The bottom line is that Susan Rice went on CNN and said the Justice 
Department was consulted. But we don't know whether there was a written 
opinion provided by the Office of Legal Counsel and, if there was, what 
it concluded and what facts that conclusion was based on.
  The General Counsel of the Defense Department testified yesterday 
that the administration had received legal advice from the Office of 
Legal Counsel in the form of an email chain. The administration needs 
to provide us with whatever written advice it received before it 
decided to contravene Federal law.
  Given their failure to respond to my previous requests and 
considering Mr. Kadzik's track record in this regard, I am not 
optimistic. As I have stated previously, Mr. Kadzik's nomination 
embodies this administration's philosophy that it is OK to ignore its 
obligations with respect to congressional oversight--a constitutional 
responsibility of the legislative branch of government, by the way.
  Let me conclude by saying that this nominee's record is emblematic of 
the administration's sorry record in complying with congressional 
oversight. And, of course, both have been abysmal.
  If this administration is serious about honoring its legal 
obligations, the Attorney General would direct Mr. Kadzik to disclose 
the Office of Legal Counsel's legal reason for why the administration 
was entitled to ignore the law's requirement to notify Congress. No 
Senator should cast a vote on this nomination before Mr. Kadzik 
provides that legal reasoning to us.
  If not now, when are all Senators--Republican and Democrat alike--
going to take a stand against this President's unilateral decision to 
ignore the Congress and his obligations under law? If not now, when 
will Members of this body stand together in defense of our legislative 
prerogatives and assert our rights as part of a coequal branch of 
government under the Constitution?
  In this Senator's view, a vote for this nominee is a vote endorsing 
this administration's contempt for our oversight authority and will 
lend support to the deal that released the Taliban five without 
adhering to the law. As my colleagues know, I will vote against this 
nominee. I encourage my colleagues to vote against this nominee as 
well.
  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. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________