[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9450-9472]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  NOMINATION OF SYLVIA MATHEWS BURWELL TO BE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND 
                       HUMAN SERVICES--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.


          Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar No. 8

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, 2 weeks ago I came to the Senate floor 
to

[[Page 9451]]

ask unanimous consent to ratify the protocol amending our tax treaty 
with Switzerland. I argued that the new protocol would no longer permit 
Swiss banks to withhold information on U.S. individuals who have hidden 
behind Swiss bank secrecy laws to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
  Today I come to the Senate floor to ask unanimous consent to ratify 
the bilateral income tax treaty with Chile.
  If the protocol with Switzerland is the perfect example of how tax 
treaties enhance our efforts to prevent tax evasion, the treaty with 
Chile--the first between our two countries--is the perfect example of 
why the United States pursues tax treaties. We pursue them to promote 
greater trading investment. We pursue them to protect American 
companies from double taxation. We pursue them to expand new markets 
and develop new business opportunities for companies and investors.
  On April 1 the Foreign Relations Committee, with strong bipartisan 
support, reported favorably on a proposed new income tax treaty with 
Chile. If ratified, the treaty would be only the third U.S. tax treaty 
in all of Latin America, but it would be a significant step forward in 
a region critical to U.S. international economic interests and would be 
with one of our strongest allies in the hemisphere.
  What does this treaty do? Simply put, it promotes trade and 
investment between the United States and Chile. It provides for reduced 
withholding rates on cross-border payments of dividends, interest, and 
royalties. It would prevent avoidance or evasion of the taxes, includes 
rigorous protections against treaty shopping, and ensures exchange of 
information between our nations' tax authorities.
  Let me also add, the American private sector's support for this 
treaty is unequivocal. To quote from a 2013 letter to Senate leaders 
from the National Foreign Trade Council, the National Association of 
Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other major U.S. 
business associations, `` . . . ratification would represent an 
important milestone in lowering tax barriers to U.S. companies 
operating in Latin America . . . and would protect the interests of 
U.S. taxpayers'' in Chile.
  This protects and grows U.S. investment in Chile. It expands U.S. 
economic engagement in the region, and that is a win-win-win.
  I know there are those in the Chamber who do not see it that way, but 
these are the facts of economic engagement and economic statecraft in 
the hemisphere.
  In the last decade, Chile has taken a regional leadership role on 
trade issues. It is one of our most important bilateral economic 
partners in the region. Total bilateral trade has nearly tripled since 
2003, and U.S. investment in Chile has more than tripled from $10 
billion in 2004 to roughly $35 billion today. Ratifying this treaty 
will take the bilateral commercial relationship to the next level.
  I understand newly inaugurated Chilean President Michelle Bachelet 
plans to travel to Washington later this month to continue the close 
partnership between our two countries. Ratifying this treaty would send 
President Bachelet a strong message that we value our partnership with 
Chile and we are serious about further expanding economic opportunities 
between our two countries.
  Madam President, 1,421 days have passed since the last time this 
Senate ratified an income tax treaty. We can end that ignoble streak 
right now.
  So I ask unanimous consent, at a time to be determined by the 
majority leader, in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate 
proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 8, treaty 
document No. 112-8; that the treaty be considered as having advanced 
through the various parliamentary stages up to and including the 
presentation of the resolutions of ratification; that any committee 
declarations be agreed to as applicable; that any statements be printed 
in the Record as if read; that if the resolution of ratification is 
agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's 
action and the Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I think it 
is important to remember that the vast majority of Americans are law-
abiding Americans who reside either here or overseas and that they do 
have an expectation of privacy and they do have a right to privacy. 
Those who break the law should be punished, but we can't forget about 
the innocent Americans who are not breaking the law who do have a right 
to privacy.
  We have had treaties such as this for decades, and I am not opposed 
to the treaties. There are beneficial aspects to the treaties. Past 
treaties have had a standard which said that one had to be committing 
tax fraud or that one had to be engaged in fraudulent activity, the 
same way every American here expects that the government is not going 
to look at a person's bank account unless they have gone to a judge 
with evidence that a person is cheating on their taxes. The government 
can't just look at everybody's information in the bank without probable 
cause. The previous standard was that there had to be some evidence 
presented that a person was cheating on their taxes. I think there 
should be some evidence presented.
  The new standard is they can look at any of a person's records that 
may be relevant. This is a much lower standard, and I think it will be 
injurious to the vast majority, if not the overwhelming majority, of 
Americans who are actually innocent but just happen to be living 
abroad.
  I would be willing to work with whoever is willing to work with me on 
this to get the treaties passed if we can keep the same standard we 
have had previously, which is a standard of fraud, not a standard that 
these may be relevant.
  So for this reason, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I would have more extensive remarks, 
but I know my colleague from Maryland has a different unanimous consent 
request. Let me make just three quick points.
  Chile's and other tax treaties the Foreign Relations Committee has 
reported favorably do not represent the first time the Senate has 
considered treaties providing for information exchange based on a 
``foreseeably relevant'' or ``may be relevant'' standard.
  In fact, since 1999--so that is about 15 years now--the Senate has 
adopted resolutions of advice and consent for at least eight other tax 
treaties using the relevant standard. This standard has been part of 
the model of U.S. tax treaties since 2006. So it is not correct that 
the ``may be relevant'' or ``foreseeably relevant'' standard is vague 
or ambiguous. In fact, it has been extensively defined in agreed 
guidance to which no country has expressed a dissenting opinion to 
date.
  I must say that not only are these objections ultimately not 
providing all the benefits that all of the private-sector interests 
have expressed--as I referred to before, the entire business 
community--but by the same token, I simply have a tough time accepting 
that those who cheat get away with cheating and that somehow we are 
going to make it easier for them to cheat when the average American 
does not have the opportunity nor the desire nor do they cheat in terms 
of their payment of whatever are the taxes they owe to the Federal 
Government in a way that helps sustain all of the things we seek as 
Americans: the best armed forces in the world, security here at home, 
educational opportunity for our kids.
  So there is a fundamental difference here. I will push these tax 
treaties, and I will urge the majority leader to give us votes then in 
a process because it has overwhelming support and we cannot have one 
Member of the Senate object to a process that can provide such benefits 
and such equity across the board.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

[[Page 9452]]




          Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar No. 9

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, let me underscore the point Senator 
Menendez, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has made in 
regard to these tax treaties.
  I want to make two principal points, and then a few other comments, 
and then I am going to propound a unanimous consent request in regard 
to the Swiss protocols.
  The two points I want to raise--first on the standard of fraud, the 
relevancy standard that has been included in tax treaties ratified by 
the Senate since the 1990s. There are at least eight treaties that have 
used this standard. This is the international standard on fraud. It is 
not the U.S. Standard. It is not the Swiss standard. It is not the 
Chilean standard. It is the international standard.
  There may have been one time when the United States could dictate 
what tax treaties would include. But we are part of an international 
community. It is part of international negotiations. This is the 
international standard for cooperation among taxing authorities in 
order to establish a level playing field.
  Secondly, our Constitution provides for the ratification of treaties 
by the Senate and provides for a two-thirds vote. It is an 
extraordinary vote. It is a heavy vote. It is a heavy burden for 
ratification of the treaties. It is not 100 percent; it does not 
require every Senator to agree to it, but it takes two-thirds of the 
Senators.
  I would urge my colleagues that we need to return to regular order. 
Everyone talks about returning to regular order in the Senate. Well, if 
we need to go through lengthy debates and votes on a treaty that is 
totally noncontroversial, I am not sure we are serving the best 
interests in the Senate. Let's have an open debate, but let's vote. If 
some Senators disagree, well, at least allow the vote to go forward so 
we can get the two-thirds of the Senate to agree.
  I want to thank the chairman of the committee. He gave me the 
opportunity to chair the hearings. So I was at the hearings during 
consideration of these treaties. We had a full panel of witnesses. Not 
one testified in opposition and not one was concerned about the issue 
that my colleague from Kentucky has raised on the fraud standard. In 
fact, they all said this is the level playing field. This will allow 
our country to support our companies and provide a level playing field 
for international investment in the United States.
  The absence of this treaty affects America's ability to attract 
investment. Make no mistake about it. It hurts our companies. It hurts 
American companies that want to do business in other countries. They 
need a level playing field, to be protected against multiple layers of 
taxation and compliance issues. So this allows for that level playing 
field, so we can have fair agreements.
  Let me mention one company that has come to us and said this is very 
important: McCormick. McCormick is a company that has been 
headquartered in Maryland for 125 years. They have 2,000 employees in 
my State of Maryland and 10,000 employees globally. They are hurt by 
the failure to have these treaties ratified.
  It presents a level playing field. It allows for investment. It 
protects the privacy. Our laws protect privacy. Swiss laws protect 
privacy. What this does is establish a level playing field so all are 
protected.
  I appreciate the fact that we may want to negotiate this in a 
different way. Well, let's work with our negotiators and work with the 
international community. It is not going to be the United States 
dictating what that standard should be. Quite frankly, the relevancy 
standard has worked well. There have been no complaints whatsoever on 
privacy issues on the eight treaties we have ratified. To the contrary, 
what it does is it removes the veil from those who are tax cheats, to 
allow us to get that information. It provides for the transparency 
necessary between taxing jurisdictions so you cannot hide and commit 
fraud against one country where you have the treaty.
  So I would urge my colleagues to allow us to proceed on these 
treaties. It is very important to economic growth in our own State.
  With that, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to 
be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the 
Republican leader, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider 
Calendar No. 9, treaty document 112-1; that the treaty be considered as 
having advanced through the various parliamentary stages up to and 
including the presentation of the resolutions of ratification; that any 
committee declarations be agreed to as applicable; that any statements 
be printed in the Record; that if the resolution of ratification is 
agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's 
action and the Senate then resume legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, let me make 
one point very clear. One Senator cannot prevent a vote in this body. 
The vote can occur at any point in time. One Senator can prevent sort 
of expedited passage without extensive debate.
  One of the things our Founding Fathers did with this body, by 
allowing filibuster and by allowing procedural ways to slow things 
down, was to allow Senators who are in the minority to try to influence 
legislation.
  I am open to a discussion on the language of this treaty, and I am 
open to a discussion on how we would have the standard promulgated. But 
I am very aware that when people talk about the criminal aspect of 
people they want to punish--I am in favor of that as well--you have to 
be aware that the vast majority of Americans who reside overseas are 
not criminals, are not tax cheats, and are law-abiding citizens.
  So I do not think we should agree to a standard that is less than our 
normal standard here in the country. I also do not think we should 
agree to a standard that might allow bulk collection of data on 
everyone who lives overseas. Realize that this can be putting us 
beholden to other countries as well, accessing records of their 
citizens who are here as well.
  So I think we have to be very careful about lessening the standard, 
and it is very much worth a debate. Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, let me point out that it has now been 4 
years since we have ratified treaties--4 years--because of time 
restraints of doing business in the Senate. It is one Senator holding 
up an expedited way under the Senate rules so we could get a vote. He 
can cast his vote any way he wishes on this issue.
  I will just say, we have so many of these tax treaties that are 
backed up now, not just the two we have spoken about today. There are 
other tax protocols and treaties that are waiting for Senate 
ratification. I would hope we could find a way that would satisfy 
colleagues to allow an up-or-down vote on these treaties. They are 
noncontroversial, but they are extremely important to the businesses of 
our country and moving our economy along.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. With regard to the Selig nomination, under the 
previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid 
upon the table, and the President will be immediately notified of the 
Senate's action.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
majority control the time from 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. today and the 
Republicans control the time from 3 p.m. until 4 p.m. today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.

[[Page 9453]]


  Mr. MANCHIN. 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. MANCHIN. Madam President, I come today and I am honored to 
support my friend Sylvia Mathews Burwell. Sylvia is a native of West 
Virginia, and I have always said that we are all a part of our 
environment. If you know where Sylvia came from, the type of area where 
she was raised and the neighborhood, it will tell you everything about 
who she is today and why she has been so successful and why public 
service runs through her veins, truly giving something back.
  The little town of Hinton, WV, is where Sylvia is from. It is in 
beautiful Summers County in the southern part of the State. It is right 
on the New River. It is a train town. Trains will come there and 
dispatch, and they will get them turned around to go in the right 
direction.
  I will never forget when they introduced Sylvia. I think it was 
Senator Alexander who was speaking. He was talking about his father, 
who worked in the rail yard and was always responsible for turning the 
trains and getting them moving. I said: Well, one thing about that, 
Sylvia comes from a train town. She knows how to get the train on the 
track and how to get it moving in the right direction, and she has 
proven that.
  She is an unbelievable, blessed person. She is gifted, as smart as 
they come--a Rhodes scholar. In West Virginia we are so proud to have a 
person with those types of skills and the ambition to serve.
  Now we will get into a little bit about her mom and dad because it is 
really who she is. Her father is an eye doctor there and is well 
respected in the town, and he is an immigrant who came from Britain. 
Her mother Cleo Mathews was the mayor. When I was Governor of West 
Virginia and I would come to town, Cleo would always call and tell me 
everything I did wrong. She was usually right, and we would get things 
worked out. We always had a great relationship. But she had skills and 
she had to give something back. You had to be involved. You just 
couldn't sit around. You couldn't be satisfied with your life just 
thinking, well, I work and I have a paycheck. There was always 
something.
  I think that comes from--I am second generation also--coming to this 
country and hearing your grandparents talk about all the wonderful 
opportunities they have been provided and how privileged they believe 
they are and how honored and why we always have to give something back. 
You had to volunteer, be involved. You had to go out and contribute. 
You had to do something. That is the type of background Sylvia comes 
from.
  When you look at every job she was asked to do, she was in the 
Clinton administration. If fame and fortune were her desire, she could 
have gotten it a long time ago. She did public service, and she did it 
in an exemplary fashion. Then after the Clinton administration she went 
to the Gates Foundation. She went to the Walmart Foundation. She is 
always with a foundation. She is somebody who is willing to help others 
and give back, trying to invest in the best of America. Then she came 
back and she became our Director of OMB. She got totally unanimous 
support.
  Now the President has tasked her to come and take the reins of the 
DHHS. I say to my friends, whether or not you support the Affordable 
Care Act, Sylvia is not coming here to change your minds. She is not 
going to tell you: I am going to tell you why you should be for it, and 
you are wrong if you are not for it. She is not going to do that. She 
is going to make the system work. She is going to be following the law 
and listening to everybody--those who support it and those who do not 
support it--and making adjustments and recommendations. I trust that 
she will take good, solid recommendations to the President: If change 
is needed, this is where we need it. If this is not working, this is 
why it is not working. If the numbers don't add up and we cannot afford 
it, we will make adjustments to make sure it does work so all Americans 
can benefit.
  I come to the floor because I know Sylvia Mathews Burwell. I know 
where she comes from. I know her family. I know her friends. I know her 
town. That speaks volumes. As I said in the opening, we are all 
products of our environment. Sylvia Mathews Burwell is a product of her 
environment, which is as nurturing and loving and caring as any one of 
us could ever hope for. To have that quality of a person who is going 
to be serving at the highest level is something I am very proud of--not 
just because she is a West Virginian but because she is such an 
accomplished person and she wants to give something back. She has lived 
the American dream. Her parents made that come true for her, and that 
is who she is.
  I would ask all of my colleagues, when they are voting, who do you 
think would have better values, who would have the ability, and who has 
the knowledge and the experience to make sure there is fairness and 
bipartisanship? Every person is going to be listened to, and she will 
give a direct answer as to exactly how she has come to a decision. That 
is all you can ask for. When you have an opportunity to get somebody at 
that level in the private sector, you would jump all over it. You would 
do whatever it would take to get somebody with her qualities.
  In public service, we have such a hard time today recruiting the 
young, recruiting this new crop of leaders. Some of them will be 
Senators, some of them will be Congresspeople. They are going to be 
leaders in their communities. They care at a young age. We have a hard 
time recruiting this younger crop of people, and when we have it, we 
better hold on to it.
  We have a chance to hold on to Sylvia, to take us to a new level 
where health care could be affordable for the masses. We could have a 
healthier population. We don't have to rank 43rd in the world as far as 
wellness and longevity. It shouldn't be that we are spending more money 
than anybody else and not getting results. We need somebody like Sylvia 
Mathews Burwell, who could put all of this together and make sense out 
of it because she comes from a family and a community that is all-West 
Virginian and all-American.
  I say to my colleagues, I hope you will vote in favor of Sylvia 
Mathews Burwell and show that we can come together, we can work in a 
bipartisan fashion and pick the best person for the job--not because 
they are Democratic or Republican or Independent or have any political 
affiliation but because they are the best qualified person for the job.
  I would say thank you to all of my colleagues for allowing me to give 
a little bit of insight into a most amazing young lady, a mother, a 
daughter, and a loving friend to all who really gives all she can.
  Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURPHY. 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. MURPHY. Madam President, I come to the floor to speak in support 
of Sylvia Burwell's nomination to lead our efforts at HHS and to follow 
up on the comments of her great friend Senator Manchin.
  I would like to add two points to what I think was a great 
presentation by the Senator from West Virginia. We rarely get someone 
who has this kind of background in both the public and private sector 
and of course who is perfectly suited for a tour of duty at the helm of 
the Nation's largest public-private partnership.
  HHS is obviously the payer for our Medicare Program and for much of 
our Medicaid Program, but they are doing business with literally 
hundreds of thousands of private entities and private companies all 
throughout the country--primarily health care practitioners from the 
east coast to the west coast--and the Affordable Care Act is an 
enormous private-public partnership. We expanded coverage through

[[Page 9454]]

both the traditional Medicaid Program and also through millions of 
people--8 million and counting--who have signed up for private 
insurance with a little bit of help from their government through tax 
credits. It is this background that she has on both sides of the 
public-private divide that I think will put her in a perfect position 
to lead this agency.
  When she came before the HELP Committee, I was particularly pleased 
that she was very willing to be flexible and aggressive in her work 
with Governors throughout the country who have not yet expanded 
Medicaid. I think there is growing willingness on behalf of many 
Republican Governors to look at some innovative ways to expand 
Medicaid, and Sylvia Burwell is the perfect Secretary to work with 
Governors to find a way--perhaps with subsidies--that will help people 
in the lower income brackets afford private insurance that could 
capture those 5 million individuals across the country who do not have 
access to Medicaid because their States have not expanded it.
  I wish to spend a few minutes in the context of this debate answering 
what I imagine will be a growing chorus of concerns and criticism from 
our Republican friends regarding some of the new rate announcements 
from exchanges all across the country. It has been hard to follow a lot 
of the criticism of the Affordable Care Act because it seems as though 
it mutates on a pretty regular basis. It started out with claims that 
the Web site could never work given its initial rollout problems. Of 
course it is working very well today.
  Another criticism was that nobody would sign up for this new benefit 
because it was not affordable. We hit 8 million in terms of those who 
signed up for private insurance.
  They said young people would not sign up. Private insurers are 
telling us their mixes of enrollees are exactly as they hoped, 
especially with respect to the young people signing up.
  Then they said people would not pay their premiums. In a House 
hearing about 1 month ago, the private insurers said that in fact 80 to 
90 percent of people were paying their premiums, which is comparable 
with the non-ACA plans.
  Of course, there was the general claim that it will bankrupt the 
Treasury, even though it is saving us trillions in terms of deficit 
savings as well as savings to the overall health care spending line 
items of the Federal Government.
  Now the critique is that these rate increases are unjustifiable as 
insurers are getting ready to offer rates on the new exchanges coming 
out for open enrollment at the end of this year.
  First of all, it is important to note that there are a lot more 
insurance companies offering health care on these new exchanges. 
Connecticut will get at least one new entrant. New Hampshire, for 
instance, went from one insurer to five insurers. There is very good 
news coming with the new exchanges. There will be a lot more options 
because the insurers have figured out it is a pretty good deal for them 
as well as their consumers.
  It is important to have a little bit of context. I have a couple of 
examples of the kind of premium increases that have been asked for by 
private insurers all across the country in the last several years. In 
2010, Anthem in California proposed a 25- to 39-percent increase in 
premiums. Again in 2010, Anthem asked for a 23-percent increase in 
Maine. The year before in Michigan, Blue Cross Blue Shield asked for 
increases up to 56 percent for some populations.
  The reality is that on average we have seen a premium increase for 
the individual market of 15 percent or above over the last 10 years. 
That is not good news, but it does provide some context for the 
requests for premium increases we are going to see in the exchanges 
this year. Actually, the reality is that since the law passed, there 
has been a fairly precipitous decline in the number of premium 
increases above 10 percent that have been requested by private 
insurers. There are less requests for premium increases above 10 
percent today than there were in the corresponding period before the 
Affordable Care Act was passed.
  Just because the rate increases that are being requested--or may be 
requested--as we roll out the next year of open enrollment for the 
State-based exchanges may be below the historical averages of the last 
few years, that certainly is not any reason for people to jump for joy. 
Fifteen percent is unaffordable, fifty-six percent is unaffordable, and 
10 percent is still unaffordable.
  It is also important to note some of the protections that are in the 
bill. For instance, one of the most important provisions of the 
Affordable Care Act that very few people have noticed is the provision 
that says that an insurer has to spend 80 percent of all the money it 
takes in on care. If at the end of the year they have not spent 80 
percent of the money they have taken in from ratepayers and premium 
payers on direct care, then they have to rebate money to consumers.
  Thus, if these premium increases are above what is justified based on 
the actual experience, there is going to be a rebate paid to 
ratepayers. Those rebates thus far have saved patients and consumers 
all across the country $5 billion, and it is a significant, historic 
protection against unjustifiable premium increases that are not backed 
by actual experience in terms of claims paid.
  The protections are even broader. While rate increases are not new, 
what is new is that consumers are back in charge of their health care 
again. Ten years ago insurers were charging 15 percent, 20 percent 
increases and they were also denying health care to millions of 
Americans who were sick. In some parts of the country they were 
charging women 50 percent more than what they were charging men. They 
were putting annual limits on health care coverage that ended medical 
insurance for many of the sickest individuals and families all across 
the country. All of those abuses, under the Affordable Care Act, are 
history.
  While I will admit we still have work to do to bring down the cost of 
health insurance in this country, at the very least today consumers are 
back in charge of their health care, the worst excesses and abuses of 
the insurance industry are no longer permitted.
  While I want to see a day when health insurance premium increases are 
2, 3, and 4 percent, what we are seeing thus far in the wake of the 
passage of the Affordable Care Act is premium increases that are less 
than the historical average before the law was passed.
  Those are the facts. I know that is not solace for individuals who 
are receiving these premium increases, but what we have seen are 
premium increases coming down and not going up since the Affordable 
Care Act was passed.
  There is still an enormous amount of work to do. The news is 
generally very good. More people are being enrolled in the Affordable 
Care Act than what was expected. Over the last 6 months alone, the rate 
of uninsured individuals in this country has come down by 20 percent. 
Medical inflation is at a near-term historic low. Whether it be 
infection or readmission rates, outcomes are getting better.
  Our next Secretary of Health and Human Services will have a lot of 
work to do to continue to perfect this law, but she is going to have a 
lot of good work and a lot of good outcomes upon which to build, based 
on her experience in both managing private sector entities and large 
public sector entities. Even with these challenges, Sylvia Burwell is 
the right choice for HHS, and I hope we will confirm her in a big vote 
tomorrow.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor to discuss the 
nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services because as a 
physician I am very concerned and want to make sure Americans can get 
health care. I think getting care is actually much more important than 
getting the insurance component of that, but that is nothing new, and I 
said that to the President. In so many ways, the President has actually 
offered empty coverage but is not actually providing an opportunity

[[Page 9455]]

for care for people. We have seen situations where people are paying 
higher premiums, higher copays, and higher deductibles, all of which 
are the many side effects of the President's health care law.
  When I hear my colleague from Connecticut make reference to rates 
going up, let's face it. What the President of the United States said 
is that premiums would drop $2,500 per family by the end of his first 
term. The President didn't say, well, it will not go up as fast or that 
it will go up some, but don't worry about it. The facts are that people 
are continuing to be hurt by the health care law, and much of it is as 
a result of the expense of the law.
  Last week USA Today had a report that said: ``Many employees hit with 
higher health care premiums.'' They go on to say:

       More than half of companies increased employees' share of 
     health care premiums or co-payments for doctors' visits in 
     2013. . . .

  Why? Because of the health care law. What other things have 
businesses that are trying to provide health insurance for their 
employees had to do? Thirty-two percent of the time the businesses 
delayed raises for the individuals because the cost of insurance under 
the President's health care law has gone up so much. People who are 
concerned about take-home pay are getting hurt by the health care law.
  According to this USA Today report, 22 percent eliminated or cut back 
on benefits, and 21 percent of these folks were cut back from full-time 
work to part-time work. That is obviously a hit to somebody's take-home 
pay.
  The report says health care premiums have increased 80 percent since 
2003, nearly three times faster than wages and nearly three times 
faster than inflation. The health care law has actually failed to do 
what the President promised when it comes to actually providing care 
and affordable care.
  As I look around the country, it is interesting to see what is 
happening. There was a report out very recently about hundreds of 
thousands of Iowans who don't have coverage. The report goes on to talk 
about a woman who said she drove a half hour from Mitchellville 
recently to seek care for flu-like symptoms at a free clinic in Des 
Moines. She is an assistant manager of a convenience store. She has 
been offered insurance by her employer but would have to pay $111 every 
2 weeks for her part of the premium, and she said: ``I can't afford 
that . . . . There's no way on Earth.''
  Our colleague from Connecticut said it is working. It is not working, 
and it is because of the mandates of the law, such as the mandate that 
people have to get insurance that the government says they need as 
opposed to what may be good for them or their family.
  The woman, Reinna, said she heard most Americans are required to have 
health insurance this year or pay a penalty. Democrats who voted for 
this said if someone doesn't buy the insurance, they have to pay a 
penalty. She heard that and learned it was equal to 1 percent of her 
income.
  According to this article from the Des Moines Register where they had 
their primary elections yesterday, in Iowa, the Des Moines Register: 
The lady laughed ruefully at the prospect. ``I don't care. They can 
fight me for it.''
  So this is a woman in Iowa, knows about the penalty, knows about the 
mandates, and she would say to my colleague from Connecticut who was 
just on the floor that it is not working for her.
  She bristled at the new requirement to obtain insurance. She said, if 
we could afford it, do you think we would be standing out here? Of 
course, where she was standing was in a line for a free clinic, nodding 
at a half dozen others in line on the sidewalk waiting for the free 
clinic to hold one of its twice-a-week sessions.
  I come to the floor today, as I have repeatedly, to talk about the 
issues of the health care law as a doctor trying to make sure patients 
get the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs, and 
seeing that the President's health care law has failed miserably 
because so many people have been hurt by this health care law. They 
have had their insurance canceled, even though the President said, Oh, 
no, it won't happen. He said, If you like what you have, you can keep 
it. National folks who assessed this called that the lie of the year.
  We also see that many people cannot keep their doctors, and they are 
finding out that their copays are higher, their premiums are higher.
  It is interesting, because it is affecting people in so many 
different ways. Minnesota is another State where there has been a lot 
of debate and discussion about the health care law. The headline in the 
Mankato Times: ``Minnesota Schools to lose more than $200 Million 
because of ObamaCare.'' My colleague from Connecticut just said it is 
working. Well, if it is working, why are the Minnesota schools losing 
$200 million because of the health care law? The article says: State 
Representative Paul Torkelson said the wasteful spending on ObamaCare 
that has left many taxpayers outraged will soon be making a significant 
impact on Minnesota's schools--a significant impact on Minnesota 
schools. According to documents released by Minnesota's management and 
budget office, over the next 3 years, the total unfunded costs 
associated with Affordable Care Act compliance will cost school 
districts statewide at least $207 million.
  It is troubling news for our schools, the State representative said. 
This is $200 million that school districts won't be able to use to hire 
more teachers or improve their educational programs. This is an 
unneeded expense that does absolutely nothing for our students.
  The senator concludes by saying: It is pretty sad when schools are 
forced to prioritize ObamaCare compliance over the education of our 
children.
  So I come to the floor when I hear my colleague from Connecticut 
saying it is working to say it is not working all across the country. 
It is not working in so many ways that the President said it is. The 
President said Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of the 
health care law. I don't know how a Senator can stand up who voted for 
this and be proud of what we are seeing happening to school districts 
all across the State of Minnesota.
  The President continues to tout some number of people who signed up 
across the country, and I always ask, How many of them actually have 
insurance?
  In Oregon, a story just out in the last week or two, in The 
Oregonian: Thousands have not paid premiums for Cover Oregonian health 
policies, placing coverage at risk. So in spite of what my colleague 
from Connecticut may have said, this article says a large number of 
people who have signed up for private health insurers through the Cover 
Oregon health insurance exchange have not paid their first month's 
premiums, meaning they are at risk of going without coverage through 
November.
  More than 81,000 people went through Cover Oregon--either through 
paper or electronic applications--to select a private plan. We know 
about the failures of that exchange. We know that the FBI, I believe, 
is investigating it. Of those, 5,000 have already canceled policies or 
been terminated for lack of payment. Thousands more have not yet paid 
their first month's premiums, meaning they have not completed their 
enrollment, according to the carriers.
  The President talks about the numbers of enrollees. I don't know how 
many people actually paid to continue--to consistently say they have 
insurance, and consistent insurance, all the way through. Insurers say 
anywhere between 66 to 80 percent of consumers have paid, meaning 
anywhere from 20 to 34 percent have not. So it is hard for me to say 
that things are working.
  It is interesting. Unions, which have supported the law, have come 
out with concerns. UNITE HERE, a union in Las Vegas, representing many 
of the casino workers, 2,000 housekeepers, waiters, others at 9 of 10 
downtown Las Vegas casinos, are concerned about the cost. One of the 
union leaders has said, when we first supported the calls for health 
care reform, we thought it was going to bring costs down.
  That did not happen, and that is why I am here on the floor.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?

[[Page 9456]]


  Mr. BARRASSO. Certainly. Absolutely. Yes, Mr. President.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I thank the Senator. I couldn't help but hear outside 
the Chamber the Senator from Wyoming talking about Oregon. So I just 
wanted to ask, in Oregon, 400,000-plus people have signed up for health 
care through the Affordable Care Act. Some of those may have had 
insurance before. We are not sure if it is 25,000, maybe it is 50,000; 
there are conflicting numbers on that. But is it a good thing or a bad 
thing that 350,000 or more individuals have gained access to health 
care through this plan?
  Mr. BARRASSO. I would say that many people in Oregon have been helped 
and many have been hurt. That is the problem with this health care law. 
There are people who have been helped, absolutely. I just believe that 
the costly side effects, the harmful side effects, the dangerous side 
effects of this health care law have actually hurt people. So for 
people who may have been helped, there are as many, if not more, who 
have been hurt through higher premiums, higher copays, loss of their 
doctor, can't go to their hospital--all of those things--plus, at the 
expense of significant amounts of taxpayer money wasted. I think we are 
seeing that situation in Oregon right now with potential lawsuits being 
filed, FBI investigating, whether there was oversight, and hundreds of 
millions of dollars, as reported in today's Wall Street Journal, of 
wasted taxpayer dollars. Oregon, I believe Massachusetts as well; 
Maryland, Minnesota, States that I have been talking about here.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Could the Senator explain how it is for those 350,000 or 
more--maybe 400,000--who have newly gained access to health care, how 
they have been hurt by gaining access to health care?
  Mr. BARRASSO. I am referring to people who have been hurt by the 
health care law all across the country. I worry about the more than 5 
million people who have lost their coverage as a result of the health 
care law.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The time of the Senator from 
Wyoming has expired.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Thank you. I am merely trying to respond to my 
colleague.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I thank very much the Senator for responding to my 
questions.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                           Student Loan Debt

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am very proud to begin a 
conversation on the floor with a number of my colleagues about one of 
the most urgent and pressing challenges that face us as a body here in 
Washington, making laws, but even more preeminently to families and 
students around the country who literally, right now, are sitting at 
their kitchen tables, in their living rooms, in family gatherings, 
trying to find a path forward in financing their education, their 
children's education, their grandchildren's education.
  We must do better as a nation. We have to do better in giving a fair 
shot to them--to the innovators and entrepreneurs and investors of the 
future--the people who will power our economy with ideas and energy as 
a result of college education, which is part of the American dream--
part of giving everybody in America a fair shot at that dream.
  I have been doing a lot of listening over these past weeks, over 
these past 3\1/2\ years, and over three decades in public service. I 
think listening is one of the most important things we do as public 
officials. There is an old saying that God gave us two ears and one 
mouth so that maybe we do a little more listening than talking. When I 
talk to students--and I have been doing a lot of that at commencement 
addresses and classrooms and roundtables around the State of 
Connecticut--I tell them I want to listen. What I have been hearing at 
Ansonia High School and Windham High School and The Stanwich School--
high schools around the State of Connecticut--is they are seeing dreams 
crushed by the cost of college education. The pages who are here today, 
our children, when we go home at night can tell us about how 
devastating these costs are, how their hopes and aspirations for the 
future are constrained and sometimes crippled financially by the cost 
of college education. We must bring it down. The costs of tuition and 
expenses must be reduced.
  At the same time, we need to find better financing options for our 
students. That is the reason we are reintroducing today the Bank on 
Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, with some minor changes, 
because we have listened to people who have told us improvements that 
could be made in that measure. But, most importantly, we have listened 
to students, both the high school students and college students, who 
are telling us about dreams deferred and dreams devastated by the costs 
of college education. So we must make sure that the $1.2 trillion that 
overhangs them and our economy is addressed.
  This measure would help the students of today and tomorrow. It would 
help the students of today because it offers promise for the future, 
and the students who already have debt would be able to reduce that 
debt. Those students who are paying 7 or 8 or 10 or 11 percent would be 
able to reduce it, refinance, not just--we all do refinancing of our 
home loans and our car loans right now. There is no possibility of 
doing it with student debt loan, and that is what this measure would 
enable them to do. For folks who have graduated and who cannot start 
families, begin businesses, buy homes, contribute to our economy, it 
would enable them to accomplish those dreams rather than deferring or 
abandoning them.
  I am often heartbroken, as I talk to people who have these debts. 
They did the right thing; they played by the rules, went to college, 
and now find themselves crushed by that debt. Those who are laboring 
under these crushing debt loans often have pursued careers in medicine 
and other professions such as nursing that would enable them to do an 
enormous good for this country if they were helped, if that crushing 
burden were somehow reduced. Giving them a fair shot is good for our 
economy because it will increase consumer demand. It is also good for 
our social fabric--literally economically, socially, and physically 
good for our health by enabling some of those doctors and nurses to 
work in communities that are underserved right now. We ought to give 
them public service options, enable some of that debt to be paid down 
or paid off through community and public service. But the measure I 
think we can agree is urgent and pressing, where there ought to be 
consensus, is enabling the commonsense refinancing of current debt.
  There are other measures that are vitally important, such as 
clarifying and requiring more accuracy and truth in the forms that are 
given to students at the time they take these loans so they know what 
their debt will be; enabling more of them to have grants rather than 
loans, bringing down the cost of tuition; enabling more public service 
options as a means to pay down or pay off debt. But let's focus right 
now on what is clearly an imperative--a moral imperative and a social 
imperative for our Nation--to enable more refinancing right now. For 
federal student loans that were originated in the years between 2007 
and 2012, the government will make $66 billion. Mr. President, $66 
billion. That money goes into the U.S. Treasury fund when, in fact, 
instead it should be invested in our students and our communities.
  I urge my colleagues to join in this effort and to focus on those 
additional measures we can achieve.
  I see my colleague from Illinois is here. He has championed and I 
have been pleased to join him in efforts to enable student debt to be 
discharged in bankruptcy. One of the great, gaping gaps in our present 
bankruptcy system is that students cannot find any relief from this 
student debt. Almost every other form of debt can be discharged from 
bankruptcy but not student debt.
  So there are other measures we can and should achieve, but a fair 
shot for everyone ought to begin right now with

[[Page 9457]]

this measure on the floor, enabling students and former students to 
refinance so they have the best shot at paying off those loans and a 
fair shot at the American dream.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut for 
referencing a measure in which we both share an interest. He is right; 
a student loan is not like another loan. It is not like the mortgage on 
your home. It is not like the money you borrowed to buy a car or a boat 
or a line of credit you might have needed at some point in your life. A 
student loan is a debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. No 
matter how bad things get, you are going to carry that debt with you to 
the grave, and believe me, they will pursue you all the way.
  We just had a report in the Wall Street Journal. There was a 
grandmother receiving Social Security benefits. They levied her 
benefits because grandma decided to befriend her granddaughter by 
cosigning her student loan, on which her granddaughter defaulted. So 
now grandma finds her Social Security check being levied to pay off her 
granddaughter's student loan. It never ever ends.
  So I support my colleague from Connecticut. He and I both believe 
this ought to change. This is awful. For goodness' sake, we have to 
have some recognition of what is happening with student debt today. It 
is not the way it used to be. Those of us fortunate enough to get the 
early government loans--the National Defense Education Act, that is how 
I went to college and law school. Scared to death when the Soviets 
launched sputnik, this Senate and the House created a loan program for 
kids like me from East St. Louis, IL, to borrow money to go to college. 
I had to pay it back over 10 years with 3 percent interest. I did not 
think I ever would, but I did. Now look at what students are faced 
with.
  Hannah Moore, of the suburbs of Chicago--I have gotten to know 
Hannah. I want to tell you Hannah Moore's story. This young lady went 
to community college first. A good idea, right--affordable, a local 
college. Then she decided to sign up at the Harrington College of 
Design. They were going to give her a special education. Well, they 
sure as heck did. The Harrington College of Design is a for-profit 
college. Hannah Moore signed up for the course. It is owned by Career 
Education Corporation. It is a for-profit school. You ought to know 
something. Career Education Corporation is under investigation in 17 
different States for their activities in luring students into worthless 
college courses. Hannah Moore was one of those victims.
  What happened to Hannah? Well, at the end of the day, when she 
finished her so-called course at the Harrington College of Design, she 
ended up $124,000 in debt, and it is growing. She cannot keep up with 
it. She cannot earn enough money to keep up with it. Do you know what 
has happened? She has moved into her parents' basement. That is where 
she has to live now. Her dad has come out of retirement to help her pay 
off the loan. That is what she faces.
  So we are going to do something about it with the help of a few 
Republicans. I hope a few of them will stand and join us. We are going 
to give students across America who are not in default an opportunity 
to refinance their college loans with lower interest rates. Those of us 
who have had a few mortgages in our life know what that means--a lower 
interest rate, a lower payment or more money reduced from the 
principal. It is the only way some of these people ever get out from 
this burden of student debt. Senator Elizabeth Warren put the bill 
together. I have cosponsored it with a number of others. We think this 
is the only way that students deep in debt have a fair shot at a 
future; otherwise, they are going to be swamped with debt and never get 
out of it.
  The prospect of going back to school for Hannah? Impossible. She 
cannot borrow money for that. Buying a car? Out of the question. Her 
own apartment? No, sorry, you cannot do that either. I have met young 
couples who have said: We are putting off raising a family because of 
the debt.
  Now we have a bill that is going to be introduced by Senator Warren, 
brought to the floor, and we need Republican support. We cannot pass it 
without Republican support. So far not one Republican has joined us--
not one--for refinancing college debt. But that can change. It will 
change if our Republican colleagues will simply go home to their States 
and have a town meeting and ask the people in attendance: What do you 
think; should we give college students a lower interest rate? Should 
the Federal Government make less money off these college students so 
they can get out from under this debt once and for all?
  They will find what I found in Illinois--overwhelming support for 
this approach.
  So if we are going to do something in the Senate Chamber that really 
affects the lives of working families--where young people and their 
parents can say, well, thank goodness somebody in Washington is finally 
listening to problems families face--this is it: refinancing college 
student loans. This is our opportunity to give a fair shot to kids from 
working families all across America, the kind of opportunity I had, the 
kind of opportunity millions of others have had.
  There is a lot more we need to do to clean up this mess when it comes 
to college loans and when it comes to the schools that are ripping off 
students, but let's start at the right place. Let's help students in 
debt get out from under that debt.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Illinois.


                           Order of Procedure

  I ask unanimous consent that Senators be permitted to speak for up to 
5 minutes each during the majority's controlled time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I would like to yield now to Senator 
Merkley and then to Senator Schumer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  I am honored to be here joining Senator Blumenthal, Senator Durbin--
Senator Baldwin is going to be here--Senator Schumer, and many others 
to come and address this important topic, and this topic is the college 
loan debt trap.
  I have a letter here from Stephanie from Oregon, and she writes to me 
about the trap she and her husband feel they are in. She says:

       I am writing to you as a potential investor into Oregon's 
     economy and the economy of the United States. Unfortunately, 
     however, I will not be able to be this investor until mine 
     and my husband's Private Student Loans . . . are paid off. We 
     owe a little less than $100,000 in . . . student loans and 
     pay $1,100 per month. We will pay this amount for the next 12 
     years. Because of our student loans and the 7-7.2% interest 
     [rate] they are set at, we cannot afford to purchase a house 
     in the neighborhood we love . . . cannot buy a car, and 
     cannot even fathom starting a family. We can't even afford to 
     go on vacation, whether that is around Oregon, or outside of 
     that to the many other wonderful states and countries. We pay 
     rent, utilities, and try and buy good, healthy food, but in 
     order to even afford these basics I have to work 2 jobs at 7 
     days a week.

  She goes on later to say:

       It has been nothing but spinning in place. . . .

  This is a growing reality for millions of Americans who have 
graduated with student loan debt the size of a home mortgage and higher 
interest that make these huge student loans the equivalent of a 
millstone around their necks. When our aspiring young adults in 
America--who have graduated, who have gone on to start their careers--
when they cannot afford to buy a house, that enhances inequality in the 
United States of America because home ownership is the major vehicle by 
which middle-class families in America establish a nest egg, establish 
wealth, establish a slice of the American dream. What is more joyous in 
life

[[Page 9458]]

than having children, being able to raise children? That is the most 
tremendous, tremendous experience. But she is saying she and her 
husband cannot even think about starting a family.
  The picture was quite different when I was graduating from high 
school in 1974. My father--when I was in grade school, we lived in a 
working-class neighborhood--had taken me to the school doors and said: 
Son, if you go through those doors and you work hard, you can do just 
about anything here in America.
  Well, that was a message about the fact that there is a pathway to 
thrive, a pathway to fulfill your potential, a pathway to pursue your 
dreams, and in the process of doing that you are strengthening our 
entire Nation because when you aspire to your potential, when you 
aspire to your dreams, then you also find yourself giving back in all 
kinds of other ways, including having enough income to pay a Federal 
income tax and contribute property taxes and revenue, as well as the 
talents or fruits of your profession.
  Well, I still live in that blue-collar community. My kids still go to 
the same high school I went to. But the message to our students today 
is very different. They are familiar with many families such as 
Stephanie and her husband. They are familiar with the fact that student 
tuition has gone up faster than virtually anything else in our society. 
It is a much bigger share. I think a rough estimate is about 2\1/2\ 
times the amount in terms of a working income than it was when I was 
going to school, starting college. Let's make this comparison: In 
Germany, the cost of a year in college is around 4 percent of the 
median income. In the United States of America, the cost of a year in 
college is about 50 percent of the median income. Well, what a 
difference between less than $1 out of $20 and $1 out of every $2. What 
an incredible difference. So, at a minimum, shouldn't we be acting 
today to enable those who have these high-interest student loans to 
refinance them to a reasonable low rate? Shouldn't we be able to do 
that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time is expired.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I will wrap up simply by saying that this is common sense. Let's 
lower this burden, and then let's go on and do much more: control the 
cost of tuition, raise the impact of Pell grants, and pursue low-
interest student loans as a tool for our students from here going 
forward.
  Mr. President, I am delighted to have had this chance to speak to a 
fundamental challenge to young Americans in every State of the United 
States of America.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first let me salute my colleague from 
Connecticut for bringing us all together to talk about this important 
issue, the good words of my colleague from Oregon--always on the money, 
always understanding what average folks need and have to go through--
and, as well, our sponsors of this legislation. I salute Senators 
Warren and Franken, who are our two lead sponsors.
  The bottom line is very simple. It is amazing to think that there are 
40 million Americans and their families--at a time when interest rates 
are at about a record low--who are paying 7 to 14 percent on their 
student loans. It is amazing to think that the average student 
graduates with over $30,000 of loans on his or her back. It is amazing 
to think that so many of our young people are living at home because 
they cannot afford not to because of student loans. Thirty-six percent 
of all individuals between 18 and 31 live with their parents--the 
highest percentage in 4 decades.
  Why should people be paying more? And even more outrageous, guess who 
is making the profit much of the time? Sometimes it is the private 
banks. That is bad enough, but sometimes it is the Federal Government. 
For the Federal Government to charge people nearly double the going 
rate for their student loans is so unfair.
  So we Democrats are hoping to give people a fair shot, a fair shot at 
being able to repay the cost of college at a reasonable interest rate. 
That is all we want. We are dedicated to helping the middle class, to 
helping working people, to helping people who do not have so much money 
get a fair shot at living decently well, the way they always have in 
America but in a way that is beginning to decline.
  Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we would beg of them 
not to stand in the way but to join us. How do they defend charging 
those who have graduated from college 7, 10, even 14 percent for their 
student loans?
  Now, we just got a CBO score. Our bill, which is paid for by simply 
the Buffett rule, which says that someone making over $1 million should 
pay the same rate as their secretary, as an average person.
  Well, that is how we pay for it. Again, I cannot believe my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle would disagree with that. 
Anyway, we have a $21 billion net positive on our bill. So for anyone 
who is worried that we do not pay for the bill, we actually pay for the 
bill and return some money to the Treasury. So a fair shot is what is 
needed here, a fair shot for everyone to afford college.
  Last year we lowered the interest rate for people already in college. 
But what about the 40 million who are out of college and are saddled 
with high interest rates, people who got out of college before 2010? 
Let's not forget the effect this has on the rest of the economy and new 
homes. Young people are not buying homes at the rate they used to--
first time home buyers. Why? Well, one of the reasons--we cannot 
quantify how much yet, but we will be doing that--is that they are 
saddled with so much student debt at high interest rates.
  So it affects our entire economy because construction jobs are not up 
to what they should be. A large part of that is because people are not 
buying homes the way they used to. So the bottom line is, it is very 
hard to resist the logic of the proposal that Senators Warren and 
Franken have put together.
  Here are some numbers from my State. Fifty-four percent of Long 
Islanders between the ages of 25 and 29 live at home with their parents 
or relatives--more than one in two. Amazing. That is the American 
dream, to be able to get out of college and go live on your own, find a 
job, maybe find the person you want to spend the rest of your life 
with. That is the American dream. It is a lot harder to do that when 
you are living at home, as much as we all love our parents. But because 
of student debt, because of high interest rates on student debt, people 
are forced to do that.
  So, again, I thank all of my colleagues who have joined in our fair 
shot effort--our fair shot effort on minimum wage, our fair shot effort 
on pay equity, and our fair shot effort on college affordability. We 
will continue to fight as hard as we can to see that the average 
middle-class family is finally given a fair shot. We hope and we pray 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not stand in the 
way.
  I know my colleagues from Connecticut and from Minnesota, who has 
been a great leader on this--and very few in America, let alone in this 
Senate, have such an understanding of the needs of average families and 
the middle class than the Senator from Minnesota. So I am happy to 
yield the floor so she may say a few--what I am sure will be very 
prescient--words.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I appreciate the words of the Senator 
from New York, and also his keen focus on these issues for the middle 
class, giving everyone a fair shot.
  I rise today to talk about the problems of student debt in this 
country and the effects that it has on millions of Americans. I think 
we all know that it is not just students, as much as that is the first 
group we think about--students--it is also their parents. Those are the 
ones I hear from a lot, and how hard it is, and how they have that next 
kid coming.

[[Page 9459]]

  While maybe they were able to patch together loans and some income to 
help one kid go through college, the second one comes along and it is 
incredibly difficult. They literally have this Sophie's choice about 
which kid they are going to send to college or what are they going to 
do with the third kid. It just should not be happening in America 
today.
  I thank Senators Franken, Blumenthal, and Baldwin for bringing us 
together on the floor, as well as Senators Harkin, Warren, and Durbin 
for their leadership on this issue. In the United States we appreciate 
the value of education. We know it leads to higher-paying jobs, better 
health, and even longer lives. I know the value of education. My 
grandpa worked 1,500 feet underground in a mine in Ely, MN. He was not 
able to graduate from high school because when his parents died, the 
two oldest boys had to go to work in the mines. They were only 15 years 
old. That is what they did. They went to work in the mines. They were 
able to keep the entire family together.
  The youngest girl had to go to an orphanage in Duluth for a while, 
and then they were able to bring her back. Those two oldest boys never 
got to graduate from high school, never went to college, and worked in 
the mines their entire life, worked underground at a very dangerous 
time in our country. When the sirens would go off, they would not know 
whose family member had been killed.
  That is what my grandpa did. He wanted a better life for my dad. He 
literally saved money in a coffee can in the basement of their house so 
that he could send my dad to college. Then my dad went to college and 
became a newspaper reporter. My mom, during the same time period, 
growing up in Milwaukee during the Depression, ended up going to 
Milwaukee Teachers College and then came to Minnesota and was a 
teacher.
  Here I am standing today on the Senate floor, the daughter of a 
teacher and a newspaper man and the granddaughter of an iron ore miner. 
It would not have happened without education. It would not have 
happened without my mom's parents struggling to make sure she went to 
college, and without my grandpa saving that money in a coffee can after 
working underground in the mines and never being able to go to school 
himself.
  That is what I know about education. That is a story we hear again 
and again from people in this country. Higher education provides 
students with the skills they need to be competitive in today's global 
economy. At a time when more and more jobs require some form of 
postsecondary school, we cannot allow cost to be a barrier to that 
opportunity. We cannot allow only the wealthy to be able to send their 
kids to college. It is really that simple.
  This country was built on the middle class. This country was built on 
this idea that no matter where you come from, if you are in a little 
iron ore mining town in northern Minnesota, that there is a chance that 
your kid can go to college. My dad did not start at some fancy college. 
My dad went to a community college which is now Vermilion Community 
College, which was then Ely Junior College, and got his 2-year degree. 
Then he went to the University of Minnesota. Back then it was so 
incredibly affordable. He would still send his laundry back to my 
grandma in Ely, and she would do his laundry and she would send it 
back. He got by on barely nothing.
  But he went on from that degree at the University of Minnesota to 
become a journalist and interview everyone from Ginger Rogers to Mike 
Ditka to Ronald Reagan. It all started in that hardscrabble mining 
town. That is what education is about in this country. Outstanding 
student loans now, they are not like something you can fit in a coffee 
can. Outstanding student loans now total more than $1.2 trillion, 
surpassing total credit card debt and affecting 40 million Americans.
  One in seven borrowers defaults on Federal student loans within 3 
years of beginning repayment. Other borrowers are struggling too. 
Thirty percent of Federal Direct student loan dollars are in default, 
forbearance or deferment. It costs a lot of money. When there are not 
high-paying jobs right out of school or when kids have really high 
costs from school, and when they are in a job that maybe eventually 
they will get enough money, they have trouble paying off their loans.
  But make no mistake, student loan debt impacts everyone, not just 
students. Student loan debt hangs like an anchor around not just 
individual students but around our entire economy. It is dragging us 
down. Graduates with high debt may delay making key investments like 
saving for retirement or getting married or buying a home. Student debt 
may even impact a person's career choices, by deterring some graduates 
from taking jobs in crucial fields like education.
  According to a report I released as chair of the Joint Economy 
Committee on the Senate side, Minnesota actually has one of the highest 
rates of student debt in the country. Seventy percent of the recent 
graduates in Minnesota have loan debt, compared to 68 percent 
nationally. So it means a lot in our State.
  The good news is that there are actions we can take----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent for another 30 seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Last summer we acted to prevent the interest rate from 
doubling. We have also introduced the Bank on Students Emergency Loan 
Refinancing Act. I urge the Senate to consider this very important bill 
so more students can manage their debt and build a better future for 
themselves and their family. I am proud to support this bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, we need to rethink financial aid in this 
country. We need urgent action if we are to reform our system, to 
return to the roots, the ideals that made college affordable for 
generations past, and hopefully for this generation and generations to 
come. Back in the 1970s and 1980s when several Members of today's 
Senate were college students, the Pell grant, which is the cornerstone 
of our Federal student aid programs, covered as much as 72 percent of 
the cost of attendance at a 4-year public college.
  For the 2014-2015 academic year, the maximum grant is expected to 
cover less than one-third of the cost. Investing in things like Pell 
grants is critical to ensuring the doors to higher education remain 
open to all students with the talent and desire to pursue a college 
degree.
  Young people today deserve the same fair shake that Members of this 
body got when we were undergraduate students, when grants and not loans 
covered most of the cost of college.
  Now, I was fortunate enough at 17 to join the Army and attend West 
Point. So I did not have to face the rigors of financing college 
education. But everyone I know in my generation will tell you it was 
easier then because there was a strong Federal commitment to supporting 
men and women of talent and desire to go on to college. Ever-rising 
costs today are just pricing out a whole generation from college 
education.
  We see more and more hard-working young people and their families 
falling behind as they try to pay for their degrees that were supposed 
to help them get ahead. In fact, an analysis of student loan debt by 
Demos predicts that today over $1 trillion in outstanding student loan 
debt will lead to a total lifetime wealth loss of $4 trillion for 
indebted households. Not only do people start off after college with 
great debt, but their ability to build assets in the future is also 
reduced. So it is a much deeper hole than even the initial debt.
  Student loan debt is jeopardizing this generation's ability to buy a 
home, to start a business, to start a family, to do things that my 
generation took for granted after getting out of college. For the last 
30 years, tuition increases

[[Page 9460]]

have outpaced inflation. Outstanding student loan debt has quadrupled 
since 2003. It is time for action.
  First, we must provide relief for borrowers who are currently 
repaying their loans. We must ensure that student loan servicers are 
held accountable for providing borrowers with accurate and clear 
information and the full range of borrower benefits they are due. That 
is why I was pleased to join Senator Durbin in introducing the Student 
Loan Borrower Bill of Rights Act.
  Even more important to families' bottom line is reducing their 
payments and overall debt burden. We should allow borrowers with high 
fixed-rate loans to refinance at the lower rates approved on a 
bipartisan basis under the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act that 
became law last year. That is the premise of Senator Warren's Bank on 
Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act which I am also very proud to 
cosponsor.
  I hope my colleagues will let us vote on this proposal so we can 
provide relief to millions of Americans who are struggling under the 
weight of student loan debt.
  We also have to demand more responsibility from colleges and 
universities. While student loan debt skyrockets, we are also seeing 
college executive salaries climb ever higher. Clearly institutions need 
to have more skin in the game when it comes to student loans. That is 
why I introduced, along with many colleagues, the Protect Student 
Borrowers Act, specifically with Senators Durbin and Warren. The 
Protect Student Borrowers Act will hold colleges and universities 
accountable for student loan default by requiring them to repay a 
percentage of defaulted loans. As the percentage of students who 
default rises, the institution's risk-share payment will rise. 
Essentially, they will now have an interest, and a real interest, in 
ensuring that their students take out appropriate loans and they have 
coursework that leads to remunerative employment after they graduate. 
Colleges can play a key role in all of these things. Today it is a 
spotty record. Some are very good, some are indifferent, and some are 
very bad.
  The Protect Student Borrowers Act also provides incentives for 
institutions to take proactive steps to ease student loan debt and 
reduce default rates. Institutions can reduce or eliminate their 
payments if they implement a comprehensive student loan management 
plan--again, if they talk to their students, if they advise them what 
to do, if they help them manage this debt.
  The risk-sharing payments will be invested to help struggling 
borrowers, preventing future default and delinquency, and reducing 
shortfalls in the Pell Grant Program. This money will stay in the 
system to help other students.
  With the stakes so high for students and taxpayers, it is only fair 
that institutions bear some of the risk in the student loan program. I 
would argue a basic premise, that they will do a lot better as 
custodians and managers and advisers for the students when they have 
money at risk.
  Right now, it is the students and their families who bear it all--and 
the government, if there is default. As a result, you don't have the 
active participation at the institutional level that could make a real 
difference.
  In many respects, this is a lesson we learned, at a very expensive 
cost, during the financial crisis in the mortgage markets, where 
mortgage makers had no interest in who was borrowing money. They didn't 
care if they could pay it back, because the minute the paper was 
signed, they sold it off to the secondary market and they walked away 
to the next closing. We can't have that attitude pervasive in higher 
education.
  We know there are many forces that are driving increases in costs in 
higher education, and one of the cost drivers is, frankly, the falloff 
on State contributions to public higher education. According to the 
State Higher Education Finance report, state spending per full-time 
equivalent student reached its lowest point in 25 years in 2011.
  I have introduced the Partnerships for Affordability and Student 
Success Act to reinvigorate the Federal-State partnership for higher 
education with an emphasis on need-based grant aid. Remember back in 
the sixties and seventies, nearly 80 percent of the financing was grant 
aid. You didn't have to pay it back. You had a chance to get an 
education and start off without a lot of debt.
  Simply put, I believe the States have to begin to renew their 
investment in education at the college level.
  I urge the Senate to come together with a sense of real urgency on 
finding solutions to all of these issues, to move forward, and to give 
this generation and the next generation the same opportunity that many 
of us here took for granted in the sixties, seventies, and eighties.
  I yield back the remainder of my time and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I thank my colleague from Rhode Island, who has been 
such a champion and a leader in these efforts over so many years. Well 
before I came to the Senate, he was there working and fighting for more 
affordable loans for our students.
  The comments that have been heard on the Senate floor over the past 
hour reflect a growing awareness and worry in the country, a worry 
about what happens to America in the future, whether we will leave a 
lesser America, and whether the American dream will be not only 
deferred but denied to so many students who are wondering and worrying 
right now about their personal futures as well as the future of the 
country.
  These comments and this conversation will be extended over this day 
and the days to come as we prepare for a crucial vote next week on this 
bill. One of the chief authors of this bill, Senator Warren, is to be 
thanked and commended. She will be on floor later today or tomorrow to 
speak for herself, but she has shown, through her career, how often 
people who most need this kind of help, whose finances most cry out for 
this assistance, are impacted, and in fact constrained in their futures 
by the big banks and lending institutions that take advantage of them--
and, in this case, even the U.S. Government itself that is profiting 
off their backs--billions of dollars in profit at the expense of our 
students when we should be investing in them.
  We have an obligation and a historic opportunity to make things right 
for young people and older people, whose present lives are impacted and 
whose futures are constrained by the daunting and financially crippling 
overhanging debt. It is an overhanging debt that impacts our economy 
because it prevents the entrepreneurs from taking risks. It prevents 
young people from buying homes and starting families. It financially 
cripples our economy as well as those individual lives.
  So in the light of self-interest, we ought to argue for all of us to 
support this legislation. For myself, I am going to be listening to 
those students who discussed their futures with me at Ansonia High 
School, Stanwich, at roundtables across Connecticut, at the 
commencements where I spoke, and the college students who spoke to me 
at Quinnipiac, or the law school students there who talked to me about 
how their present lives and their spirit, their hope for public 
service, as well as for gaining for themselves the promise of their 
futures, will be impacted and maybe put out of reach by the debt they 
have, not just hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars, but tens of 
thousands of dollars and, for some, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  We can do better for them and for ourselves if we enable them to 
refinance. Right now, student debt is not only one of the few debts 
that is nondischargeable in bankruptcy, but it is one of the few debts 
that is nonrefinanceable.
  Let's treat these students as we would other debtors. In fact, let's 
give them a fair shot. Let's give our country a fair shot.
  I am proud to support this legislation. I thank all of my colleagues 
who are here today, and all who will support--I hope on both sides of 
the aisle--this vote we will have next week.

[[Page 9461]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I rise for a moment to talk about the 
Sylvia Burwell nomination, pending confirmation to be Secretary of 
Labor at HHS, and also to talk about the Affordable Care Act, because 
you can't separate the two.
  I have the good fortune of being on the Health, Education, Labor and 
Pensions Committee and the Finance Committee. The good fortune of that 
is it allowed me to twice be able to interrogate--and I use the word 
interrogate understanding its many definitions--Ms. Burwell over issues 
that were important to me both in the Health, Education, Labor and 
Pensions Committee, as well as in the Finance Committee.
  I found her to be articulate, forthright, straightforward, and 
candid--something we haven't had in the Secretary of Labor-HHS for the 
last year or so. I am looking forward to having somebody in there who 
will be able to answer the hard questions. I might not like the answer, 
I might not agree with the solutions, but I like having somebody who 
has the intellect, the capability, and the willingness to communicate 
with Members of Congress, regardless of their party. So I will vote for 
Sylvia Burwell to be confirmed as Secretary of Labor and HHS, and I 
wish her the best.
  No one should confuse that vote, however, for being a vote in support 
of the Affordable Care Act and what it is doing to health care in the 
United States today. I want to talk about that for a second. Some of 
these things I want to talk about are questions I asked Ms. Burwell in 
the confirmation hearing.
  When I was on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, 
and we did the markup in terms of the health care bill, we met for 
69\1/2\ hours. I heard every debate on every amendment; I heard every 
debate on every philosophy; I heard every proposal that was made, and 
it became quite clear to me that the premise of that legislation, based 
on the President's recommendation, was diametrically opposed to my 
personal philosophy in terms of where government's role should be.
  I think the President--and it has been said by the leader Harry Reid 
recently--thought a single-payer health care system was the right way 
to go. I think the Affordable Care Act is designed to drive America 
toward a single-payer health care system.
  I would rather have a competitive private sector system that is on a 
playing field that the government makes sure is fair and level but that 
the winners and losers in health care become those who compete the best 
in terms of quality and service.
  In fact, the intent of the ObamaCare act and Affordable Care Act has 
directed a lot of things to happen. Three of them were not good.
  Premiums have gone up. The costs to the consumer have gone up, 
principally because taxes have been levied on the insurance industry. 
That is No. 1.
  Access has been more limited and more restricted based on the Bronze 
Plan, the Silver Plan, the Gold Plan, and differences between the 
exchanges.
  Third and foremost, there is a great uncertainty in America about 
what happens next and where health care is going, because the President 
has selectively given waivers and put off the impact of certain 
provisions of the law, while lifting up and actually repealing with his 
own signature and his own pen provisions that were in the law. So there 
is a lot of uncertainty.
  Two things I want to focus on from the cost standpoint. One of them 
is what is called the HIT, the health insurance tax, which went into 
effect this year. This year $8 billion in taxes were levied against 
small- and medium-size group insurance providers in the exchanges for 
health care. It is an arbitrary number that was used to help determine 
and pay for the Affordable Care Act, and it is assessed based on the 
market share of the companies.
  Think about this for a second. The U.S. Government is taxing health 
insurance providers based on their market share of health insurance, 
and adding that cost to where? To the premium that is paid by the 
consumer.
  It has been estimated that the premium cost is going to go up about 
$512 a year for the average consumer, just in order for the moderately 
small- and medium-sized group provider to pay the fine or pay their 
share of the tax of $8 billion. That $8 billion in 2014, in 2019 goes 
to $14.3 billion and will go up ad infinitum as it will continue to 
climb--which means costs will continue to climb.
  Access has been restricted because a lot of people aren't playing in 
the system. A lot of specialty hospitals have chosen not to join the 
plans. That has meant that specialty care to a lot of children and 
adults is not available.
  Another problem we have had is with navigators, and I want to focus 
on the navigator point for a second, because it fundamentally 
underscores my belief in the private sector.
  For years I ran a business. It was a business where we had some 
employees but mostly had independent contractors. We provided group 
medical benefits for our employees, but only access to salesmen who 
would sell group plan health plans for independent contractors.
  They got a commission when they sold a plan, when they provided the 
services, and the employee or the independent contractor in my company 
decided to buy. What we did in the Affordable Care Act--or what the 
Affordable Care Act and those who voted for it did--it basically did 
away with all the salesmen in the country who were selling group 
medical plans to individuals and small businesses. Why? Because it had 
a medical-loss ratio maximum of 80 percent or 85 percent, meaning your 
medical costs had to be 80 percent to 85 percent of the premiums. 
Administrative costs could only be 15 to 20, and it counted the 
commission for selling the product as an administrative cost, which 
meant commissions weren't available to be paid.
  So what happened? All the people in sales in terms of group medical 
insurance got out of the business and went to selling something else. 
What happened because of that? Navigators came about.
  So we ended up hiring a bunch of unqualified, unknowledgeable, 
limited-talent people as navigators to offer to try and sell insurance 
under the new exchanges created by the ObamaCare act. What happened is 
sales of those policies were not very robust. In fact, it was very 
difficult for the President to get his minimum goal of 7 million people 
being covered. Why? Because the navigators weren't salesmen, No. 1; No. 
2, they weren't as well educated as they should have been; and, No. 3, 
the States did not embrace it.
  So that is the private sector solution that had been used for years 
and years in our country; that is, independent agents making sales of 
independent insurance products through independent contractors. That 
has now gone away. They have to now go find an employee who is a 
navigator, who has no incentive, because they are on a salary and not a 
commission, to provide a plan or to sell a plan. They merely are there 
to collect their paycheck and offer information, if in fact somebody 
can find them.
  My point is this: Ms. Burwell is taking on a serious challenge in 
terms of Labor HHS. The Affordable Care Act presents a lot of problems 
in terms of access, cost, and quality of health care for the American 
people that will only get greater as the years go by. We are going to 
take somebody of her competence and her candid nature to help us join 
together to see to it that what has become a major problem that looms 
for our country, the Affordable Care Act, is revisited to look at a new 
way to go back to the private sector, go back to competition, go back 
to a level playing field and out of the business of selective taxation, 
less access, more cost, and more bureaucracy. That is what we have with 
the Affordable Care Act right now. That is what is untenable.
  I wish Ms. Burwell the best. I intend to be very aggressive and 
active in my work on the Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions Committee 
and the Finance Committee in trying to get to the bottom of some of the 
questions that have

[[Page 9462]]

gone unanswered from the Department. I wish her the best, and I hope I 
get the answers to those questions when she is confirmed as the new 
Secretary of HHS.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  (The remarks of Mr. Roberts pertaining to the introduction of S. 2430 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. ROBERTS. I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I 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 Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Energy Regulation

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, this last fall Environmental Protection 
Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy embarked upon a national listening 
tour to gather feedback on possible new energy regulations that could 
be ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory power. 
Notably absent from her tour across the Nation were the major coal-
producing or user States.
  Now, my State of Indiana was notably absent from that despite our 
request that she listen to what Hoosiers had to say about their source 
of energy, what it does for the state's economy, how it helps attract 
jobs to our State, and how it helps our residents to keep utility bills 
in line. So we were very disappointed that we were not included in that 
listening tour. Other States, surprisingly--or maybe not surprisingly--
which are also coal-producing energy States were also bypassed. 
Apparently, they didn't want to hear from us.
  I think on Monday we found out exactly why it was done that way, 
because in the latest installment of the administration's ongoing ``war 
on coal'' as it is described, Administrator McCarthy announced that the 
EPA is putting forward new rules on existing fossil fuel powerplants. 
These new proposed regulations are essentially an energy tax that will 
damage our national economy as well as the economy of Indiana and hike 
electric bills for every Hoosier.
  As the seventh highest coal-producing State in the Nation, Indiana 
relies on coal-fired electricity to meet well over 80 percent of its 
energy needs. Our industry provides thousands of jobs and contributes 
three-quarters of a billion dollars to the Indiana economy. Because of 
this, the EPA proposed rule will place a choke hold on Indiana's 
primary and most affordable energy source, driving up utility costs, 
and putting our State at a disadvantage in competing with other States 
to lure companies and to attract residents.
  It is worth noting that the EPA's announcement ignores the progress 
the utility industry has made in recent years, and, in fact, in recent 
decades. Energy providers in Indiana and across the country have spent 
billions of dollars to control air pollution that has resulted in 
significant declines in emissions. In fact, we have significantly 
cleaned our air and water through environmental regulation and through 
capital investment to produce an environment that is the envy of many 
nations. This has been done at a competitive disadvantage to our 
companies, because we are competing in a global economy and we know 
that nations such as China and India and others have not made the same 
commitment that Americans have in controlling their emissions.
  We have also been a leader in Indiana in reclamation and restoration 
on the mining front. So those who say it is a desecration of the land 
to extract coal need to come and see what we have done in terms of 
reclamation. Instead of barren hillsidesbarren of grass and trees, you 
will find lush pastures and scenic views where you would never have 
known mining had taken place.
  Penalizing Hoosier energy producers with unattainable environmental 
restrictions, I believe, is the wrong approach. In effect it is a 
backdoor way for unelected bureaucrats to impose regulations similar to 
the cap-and-trade scheme previously pushed by the White House. Not only 
did a totally Democratic-controlled Congress fail to pass this similar 
proposal in 2010, I think it is clear that there will not even be 50 
votes for the EPA's proposed regulations in the Senate today, much less 
the 60 votes required for passage. I think the President realizes this.
  So what does he do? He bypasses Congress, which I think is an 
unconstitutional means of enforcing what ought to be done through 
legislation--debated and passed by those who are elected and are 
responsible to the people who elected them--and bypasses that by 
essentially moving it to an agency and saying: You do it by rulemaking. 
Then unelected bureaucrats make the decisions that we ought to be 
making in this Congress.
  This is not the first time that one country has had to limit one type 
of energy to the detriment of economic growth and the pocketbooks of 
hard-working families. These new sweeping rules on coal-fired 
powerplants brought to mind my friends in Western Europe. As U.S. 
Ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2005, I had a front row seat for the 
similar transition away from fossil fuels that most Germans now regret.
  When the German legislature passed a renewable energy law in 2000, 
Germany gave solar and wind producers 20 years of fixed high prices and 
preferable access to the country's electricity grid. Following a 
fashionable green wave of the moment, the main political parties in 
Germany reached a hasty decision to phase out all 17 of that country's 
nuclear power plants. German leaders vowed to eliminate clean nuclear 
power while simultaneously aiming to reduce carbon emissions from 80 to 
95 percent by 2050. These overly ambitious and seemingly contradictory 
targets they said would be achieved by an extravagant government plan 
to encourage the development of renewable energy production methods.
  Under the plan the so-called ``energiewende'' or ``energy 
transition'' renewables, mostly solar and wind, would supply--they 
said--80 percent of Germany's electricity and 60 percent of the 
country's total energy requirements. If those goals look impossible, it 
is because it has been impossible for them to reach and they realize 
that. Germany's ongoing subsidization of alternative energy means 
Germans pay significantly higher prices for energy than the global 
average, putting their industries at a competitive disadvantage. Their 
consumers pay some of the highest electric rates in the world.
  Earlier this year the German government revealed that nearly 7 
million families--and they only have 80 million in the country--are in 
``energy poverty,'' meaning they have to receive major subsidies from 
the government in order to pay their electric bills. Today German 
citizens and their businesses and manufacturing entities complain 
loudly about these extra costs that Americans and most other European 
nations do not face. It has triggered a potential crisis from an 
economic standpoint. Companies are threatening to move offshore, 
elsewhere in Europe or to the United States or to other places. Users 
and residents are complaining loudly about the fact that they are 
subsidizing an unworkable plan.
  While the government subsidies finance inefficient technologies and 
the government obsesses about emissions goals, Germany has ramped up 
its coal use, ironically, to 45 percent of total electricity 
generation.
  Think about this for a minute.
  A government plan to mandate and subsidize alternative energy 
sources, to close their nuclear plants, to cease using coal-fired 
plants to provide power has now put Germany in a situation where 45 
percent of its energy is provided by the import of coal--high sulfur 
coal with high emissions, because that is what burns the hottest.
  Now the question here is: Can we learn some lessons from this? What 
we are embarking on here essentially is a

[[Page 9463]]

plan very similar to what has already been tried and failed. This is a 
cost too high for our economy in the United States. Without a course 
correction, I think President Obama's war on coal will receive the same 
results as Germany's or perhaps even worse, higher prices and real 
potential for electricity supply disruptions.
  I talked to a number of the electric companies that derive from coal 
a source of energy that provides a very reliable base load. Base load 
is what you absolutely have to have to keep the lights on and to run 
the factories and to keep energy flowing. Their concern is that the 
current plan will disrupt that base load to the point where we cannot 
guarantee energy will reach homes at a time when a polar vortex has put 
people at subzero freezing temperatures or when the temperatures climbs 
to triple digits during the summer. These baseloads cannot be reached 
by turning windmills, and many days--particularly in my State and 
others--the Sun is not shining. That is not a dependable source for 
providing the baseload that is necessary, particularly at times of 
stress on the system.
  President Obama has often seen elements of European socialism as 
something he would like to impose on Americans. Well, this is one time 
when I think the President should learn from European socialism and 
European mistakes and avoid duplicating the situation in Germany by 
simply letting proven energy providers do their jobs and produce the 
energy that is needed.
  Once again, I have to say the United States has a pretty commendable 
record of addressing the issues of emissions. We all want clean air, we 
all want clean water, and we all want to have a safe environment for 
ourselves, our children, and the future.
  Hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars have been spent 
over the years trying to control those emissions, and we have a pretty 
good record. Can we go farther? Absolutely. Can we do more? Absolutely. 
Can we put ourselves on a much more sustainable path to a cleaner 
environment with less emissions? Absolutely. But setting a mandatory 
number in terms of percentage and a mandatory deadline in terms of 
reaching something that has proven to be unreachable and threatens our 
ability to provide sustained energy to our businesses and residents is 
something we need to take careful assessment of before we rush into 
arbitrarily setting a rule that bypasses the debate that would take 
place in Congress, bypasses the positions of our elected Members of 
this Congress, and done through a process the Constitution has 
established in terms of how we make decisions.
  I urge my colleagues and the President to take a second look at what 
the possible consequences could be. It is nothing but pie in the sky, 
ideologically driven rules and regulations that are driving this. We 
have a model of a major industrial nation that has taken similar steps 
and has seen those steps fail.
  Again, I urge my colleagues to look very carefully at what is 
happening through this proposed rule, and I trust we will be able to 
effectively address this situation in a responsible and reasonable way.
  I see my colleague from Tennessee is prepared to remark on perhaps 
this or something else, but there is probably no one better suited to 
talk about alternative energy and its consequences than my colleague 
Senator Alexander.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am delighted to be on the floor to 
hear the distinguished Senator from Indiana, and former Ambassador to 
Germany, tell the story of Germany, which has gotten itself into what 
can only be described as an energy mess.
  He summed it up pretty well. They basically adopted the policies the 
President seems to be suggesting. Where did they end up? They closed 
their nuclear plants and they are buying their nuclear power from 
France. They subsidized wind and solar, and now they are buying natural 
gas from Russia--of all unreliable people. As a result of all this, 
they ended up having to build coal plants.
  I think I was with the Ambassador in Germany, and I said to the 
Economic Minister: This has produced a situation where you have nearly 
the highest electricity prices in the European Union. What do you tell 
a manufacturer when they say they want to come to Germany? The minister 
said: I tell them to go somewhere else.
  Well, somewhere else is the United States today, and we want those 
jobs.
  I thank the Senator for his experience.
  I come to the floor on another subject. Tomorrow we will vote on the 
nomination of Sylvia Matthews Burwell to be the Secretary of Health and 
Human Services. I intend to vote yes on the nomination. Ms. Burwell has 
a reputation for competence, and she is going to need it. She is being 
asked to oversee a big mess this administration has created in health 
care and so far has lacked the leadership to clean up. Republicans know 
how to clean it up. We want to take our health care system in a 
different direction, and we need to be able to work with Ms. Burwell to 
do it.
  In a few minutes, I am going to spell out two things: first, what Ms. 
Burwell can do to avoid the mistakes of her predecessor in working with 
Congress and serving the American people, and second, what Republicans 
would like to do with our health care system. I have five items to 
suggest for her to work on with us.
  No. 1, end the secrecy. Last year I said the NSA could have learned 
something from Secretary Sebelius because getting information about the 
ObamaCare exchanges was next to impossible for Members of Congress.
  The administration owes the American taxpayers and their elected 
representatives under the Constitution information about how the 
administration is spending our money. We should not have to rely on 
anonymous news sources.
  No. 2, work with Congress. This administration has made at least 22 
unilateral changes in the new health care law, many of which should 
have been made by Congress. At this rate, the President may be invited 
to speak at the next Republican convention for having done the most to 
change his own health care law.
  Our Founders did not want a king. Some Presidents have stepped over 
the line the Founders intended, but I don't think any President has 
gone as far as this one. He has appointed more czars than the Romanovs. 
He made recess appointments when the Senate was in session. He turned 
his Education Secretary into the chairman of the national school board. 
This President has swung the furthest from the kind of elected leaders 
our Founders envisioned, George Washington modeled, and our 
Constitution prescribed.
  Will Ms. Burwell follow the President's steps or will she seek to 
work within the framework of the Constitution? I hope she chooses the 
latter.
  No. 3, please don't solicit from companies you regulate. This is 
pretty simple, but the former Secretary solicited from companies she 
regulated, and she should not have. This kind of behavior should leave 
with her.
  No. 4, be a good steward of taxpayer dollars. Apparently the 
government is set to spend more than 1 billion Federal tax dollars in 
technology costs on the ObamaCare Web site. We know that nearly $\1/2\ 
billion was wasted on four failed State exchanges. This kind of waste 
makes American taxpayers furious. They earned those dollars, paid those 
taxes, and don't deserve to see that money flushed down the drain by 
Washington bureaucrats who didn't care enough to see that things were 
done right.
  No. 5, show Americans some respect. That means don't announce major 
policy changes in blog posts. When Congress asks if you are in trouble, 
don't pretend everything is fine. If Secretary Sebelius had been 
upfront about the Web site problems before the rollout, we might have 
saved Americans precious time and money.
  Most importantly, recognize that the majority of Americans disapprove 
of the new health care law and start taking a look at Republican health 
care

[[Page 9464]]

proposals as a way to repair the damage done by ObamaCare.
  At Ms. Burwell's hearing before the Senate HELP Committee, where I am 
the ranking Republican, I laid out again what Republicans would do if 
we could--what we would like to do with our health care system. We have 
been saying this since 2009 when the legislation was first introduced.
  When I was a boy, my grandfather was a railroad engineer in Newton, 
KS. He drove a big steam locomotive. He would drive a switch engine 
into a roundhouse and onto a turntable. It might have been headed to 
Santa Fe, and then he would turn it around and head it off to another 
direction, maybe to Denver or Houston. It is hard to turn a big train, 
so that is what they had the turntables for.
  Ms. Burwell understands this. She is from a railroad town in West 
Virginia, as it turns out, and that is what Republicans would like to 
do with our health care system, we would like to turn it around and 
head it off in a different direction--not back but in a different 
direction. We want to repair the damage ObamaCare has done, and we want 
to prevent future damage as responsibly and rapidly as we can. We would 
like to move in a different direction to put in place health care 
proposals that would increase freedom, increase choices, and lower 
costs. We trust Americans to make those decisions themselves, and we 
believe that is the American way.
  Four years ago Congress and the President made what we believe was an 
historic mistake. Congress passed a 2,700-page bill. Republicans said 
we don't believe in trying to rewrite the whole health care system. 
Let's instead go step by step to create more freedom, more choices, and 
lower costs.
  Let me take you back for a moment to the health care summit at the 
Blair House 4 years ago. The President invited three dozen Members of 
Congress. He spent 6 hours with us, all on national television. I was 
asked to speak first for the Republicans. I said what I thought was 
wrong with the President's plan. I said it would increase health care 
costs, and it has.
  USA Today reported that health care spending in the first quarter of 
this year rose at the fastest pace in 35 years. The Hill newspaper 
reported that insurance executives say premiums in the new exchanges 
will double or triple in parts of the country the next year. Even with 
subsidies, many Americans are finding that deductibles, copayments, and 
out-of-pocket expenses are so high they can't afford health insurance.
  We said people would lose their choice of doctors, and many have. We 
said ObamaCare would cancel policies, and it has. At least 2.6 million 
Americans have had their individual plans outlawed by ObamaCare. I 
remember that Emilie from Lawrenceburg, TN, had a $52-a-month policy. 
She has lupus, and her policy fit her needs and her budget. It was 
canceled. Now she is in the exchange, and it costs about $400 a month. 
She says it is more coverage than she needs and she can't afford it.
  Millions more Americans who get their health care through small 
businesses will find the same thing will happen to them later this 
year.
  We said jobs would be lost, and they have. The President of Costa 
Rica is hosting jobs fairs and welcoming medical device companies that 
have been driven out of the United States by the onerous 2.3-percent 
tax on revenues.
  We said Medicare beneficiaries would be hurt, and they have. The 
average cut for a Medicare Advantage beneficiary will be $317 between 
this year and next.
  We said the only bipartisan thing about the bill would be opposition 
to it, and it is. A recent Gallup poll says that 54 percent of 
Americans are opposed to the law.
  During the debate, I said every Senator who voted for the new health 
care law ought to be sentenced to go home and serve as Governor in 
their home State and try to implement it. There are 16 Governors 
struggling with that today who won't implement the Medicaid expansion 
because they are worried about costs down the road, and they should.
  When I was Governor of Tennessee, Medicaid costs were 8 percent of 
the State budget, and that was in the 1980s. Today it is about 30 
percent. These Governors are wondering what costs will be in 10 years.
  The most important thing we said was what we would do if we could. We 
said: Let's go step by step in a different direction. Our Democratic 
friends said: Wait a minute, that is not a comprehensive plan. We said: 
You are right; we don't believe in comprehensive. If you are expecting 
Mitch McConnell to wheel in a wheelbarrow with a 2,700-page Republican 
health care bill on it, you will wait until the Moon turns blue because 
we are policy skeptics. We don't believe we are wise enough to write a 
2,700-page bill that will change the whole system, but we believe we 
can go step by step in the right direction, and we outlined our steps.
  Senator Johnson has a proposal that would allow more Americans to 
keep their insurance plans, as the President promised.
  Senator McCain has a proposal that allows you to buy insurance in 
another State if it fits your budget and your needs.
  Senator Enzi has a proposal for a small business employer so that he 
or she can combine purchasing power with other employers and offer 
employees lower cost insurance.
  Senators Burr, Coburn, and Hatch have a proposal to allow to you buy 
a major medical plan to ensure you against a catastrophe and a health 
savings account to pay for everyday expenses.
  I have a proposal to make it easier, not harder, for employers to 
reward employees who live a healthy lifestyle. That is what we mean by 
doing what my grandfather did with that train and turning it around and 
heading it off in a different and correct direction.
  As rapidly and responsibly as we can, we would like to repair the 
damage ObamaCare has done. We would like to prevent future damage. We 
want to move in a different direction that provides more freedom, more 
choices, and lower costs. We trust Americans to make decisions for 
themselves. That is the American way.
  Since President Obama will still be in office for the next 2 years, 
if Ms. Burwell is confirmed, as I fully expect she will be by a good 
vote, we will need her help to accomplish that.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                             VA Challenges

  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise to discuss important veteran and VA 
issues--issues we are all properly focused on like a laser beam right 
now--and I will be joined over the next several minutes by Senators 
Rubio, Inhofe, and Heller, who share all of my concerns.
  I have been coming to the floor pretty relentlessly--because 
apparently that is what is necessary--to talk about one specific 
priority with regard to veterans in Louisiana; that is, moving--there 
is no good reason we can't move--on expanding outpatient clinics that 
are overdue in 27 locations and in 18 States, including 2 new expanded 
outpatient clinics in Louisiana, specifically in Lafayette and Lake 
Charles. These clinics have been planned for, on the books, and paid 
for for several years now. They are not being built, they are not being 
moved into purely because of an administrative glitch at the VA that 
delayed the whole process by a year. Then, in that intervening year, a 
so-called new scoring issue came up on Capitol Hill at the CBO. We have 
blown through all of that. We have solved those problems, finally, 
after a lot of delay. We have solved those problems, and now there is 
absolutely no reason to not take up a bill that has been passed by the 
House, put a simple amendment on the bill and pass it through the 
Senate, and get on with building these new and necessary expanded VA 
clinics at 27 locations around the country, in 18 States, obviously 
including the State of Louisiana. There are two locations there, as I 
mentioned--in Lafayette and Lake Charles.
  I again take the floor in the context of this much broader VA scandal 
to

[[Page 9465]]

urge us to come together and act in this simple but important way. I 
have been coming to the floor to urge this action for months now--well 
before this current VA scandal erupted. But I think that new context of 
this national VA scandal makes bipartisan action on this and anything 
else we can agree on more necessary than ever. So I again urge all of 
my colleagues to come together to get this simple but important work 
done and to continue to work on all of the other very necessary changes 
we need at the VA.
  In terms of these 27 outpatient clinics, there is no disagreement 
about this. A bill has been passed through the House--with one 
dissenting vote--to get this done. It sits in the well of the Senate. 
There is no objection to the merits of the bill as long as we add one 
perfecting amendment that has been worked out with every Member of the 
Senate. There is no substantive objection to that. However, it has been 
held up and objected to by Senator Sanders, the head of the veterans 
committee, purely because he wants to use it as leverage to pass his 
much broader veterans bill on a host of other topics.
  As I have said many times before, those other topics are very 
important. Those broader topics have only been underscored in the last 
few weeks with this developing VA scandal. We need to address many 
areas, but we shouldn't hold veterans hostage and we shouldn't hold up 
progress in any area we can agree on simply to create a hostage to try 
to forge movement in these other areas.
  In fact, in terms of that general proposition, I think Senator 
Sanders agreed with me. Back on November 19 of 2013, Senator Sanders 
adopted and endorsed this approach with regard to other matters. There 
was another set of work on other veterans issues, and issues were 
worked out so that a specific proposal could move forward by unanimous 
consent. Senator Sanders came to the floor and basically said: Yes, 
let's agree on what we can agree on. Let's move forward with what we 
can move forward on.
  I am happy to tell you that I think that was a concern of his.
  He was speaking about another Senator on this other veterans issue.

       We got that UC'd last night. So we moved that pretty 
     quickly, and I want to try to do those things. Where we have 
     agreement, let's move it.

  Senator Sanders was urging us, particularly in the context of the 
overall VA scandal and VA mess: Let's start acting. And where we have 
agreement, let's move it.
  We are not going to solve every veterans problem in one bill 
overnight, but we can start. A bite at a time, a step at a time, we can 
start to do positive work, and these 27 clinics in 18 States are very 
positive, very concrete.
  So where we have agreement--and we have complete agreement in this 
area--``let's move it''--a direct quote from Senator Sanders from late 
last year. I am sorry to say that Senator Sanders is not allowing us to 
move it. We have absolute agreement on the substance of these clinics. 
We can call that bill off the calendar right now. We can put the 
perfecting amendment on it. There is absolutely universal agreement on 
the substance of that bill with that amendment. But we are not moving 
it, apparently because he wants to use that as some sort of leverage 
for other VA proposals. I want to work on those proposals, but where we 
have agreement, let's move it.
  Veterans want us to come together in a bipartisan way. They want us 
to act not in a month or a year, not after more and more studies, they 
want us to start to act now where we can, where we have agreement.
  I think it is very important that we act. It is very important that 
we do so in a bipartisan way. This is one focused area where that is 
possible immediately, today, so I urge us all to do that.
  There are other areas where we need to act. Senator Sanders is in 
discussions with many of us, being led on the Republican side by 
Senators Burr and McCain. I hope that broader agreement comes together. 
I hope it comes together very soon. I have been assured by both sides--
by Senator Sanders on the Democratic side and Senators Burr and McCain 
on the Republican side--that certainly this clinic issue will be 
included in any such agreement. But let's come together here and now 
where we have agreement--and we do on these clinics. Let's act for 
veterans as soon as we can, and we can right now with regard to these 
clinics.
  I urge us to adopt that positive, commonsense approach: Act where we 
have agreement, immediately. Build consensus and continue to work on 
those areas where there is continuing discussion, and act and build 
agreement and build consensus as quickly as we can in those other 
areas. I urge us to do that as soon as we can, wherever we can, 
whenever we can, and that can start today--if Senator Sanders will let 
us--with regard to these 27 expanded outpatient clinics in 18 States.
  I see Senator Heller has joined us on the floor, and I will defer to 
him. I look forward to the comments of Senators Rubio and Inhofe as 
well about the broader veteran and VA challenges as well as this 
specific clinics issue.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, I first wish to thank my good friend from 
Louisiana for putting together a proposal that would ultimately 
increase veterans access to care. As does he, I believe our veterans 
are entitled to a VA system that provides them with the services they 
were promised--not only promised but to receive them in a timely 
manner. As my colleague from Louisiana mentioned, I support his efforts 
to authorize 27 VA clinics, and I cannot understand why the Senate is 
not acting on this commonsense proposal.
  I would also like to thank my other friends; for example, Senator 
Rubio from Florida, who is fighting to bring some sort of 
accountability to the VA. His bipartisan, bicameral proposal is a much 
needed step in the right direction to give the VA the tools to fire VA 
executives who are not doing their jobs.
  Unfortunately, after talking extensively with veterans in Nevada, I 
believe these problems of management, of accountability, and of 
efficiency extend well beyond the Veterans Health Administration. The 
Veterans Benefits Administration continues to struggle to eliminate the 
veterans disability claims backlog as it operates in what I consider to 
be a 1940s system here in the 21st century. There are more than 3,600 
veterans in Nevada and nearly 300,000 nationwide who are stuck in a VA 
disability claims backlog. My home State of Nevada has the longest wait 
in the Nation at 348 days for a claim to be processed.
  What veterans need is for Congress to take action to reform a broken, 
outdated claims-processing system. That is why Senator Casey and I came 
together a year ago to address this issue with a targeted approach to 
fix the claims process. So here is what we introduced. It is the ``VA 
Backlog Working Group March 2014 Report.'' These solutions we are 
speaking about are included in our 21st-century Veterans Benefit 
Delivery Act, which Senator Casey and I introduced in March.
  Our legislation addresses three main areas of the claims process: 
submission, VA regional office practices, and the agency's response to 
VA requests. I recognize that the claims process is complex, and there 
is no silver bullet that will solve this problem, but the VA's current 
efforts will not eliminate this backlog.
  I think my colleagues here today would agree this is a bipartisan 
issue. There isn't a Member of the Senate whose State is not impacted 
by the VA claims backlog. Yet this bipartisan legislation remains in 
the backlog of bills yet to be considered by the Senate.
  It is past time for Congress to give this issue the attention it 
deserves. Congress needs to reform the VA and when doing so cannot 
ignore the problems that plague its benefits administration.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I wish to applaud the work of the Senator 
from Nevada and echo his sentiments. I am a member of this bipartisan 
working

[[Page 9466]]

group on the claims backlog. I am a coauthor of the bipartisan 
legislation he helped spearhead, along with Senator Casey. It is 
another very good example of a bipartisan consensus where we can act. 
We can move it. So let's come together and let's act in a responsible, 
bipartisan way, and let's move it. That is what veterans want. That is 
what veterans tell me all across Louisiana. That is what the veterans 
service organizations are saying.
  This crisis demands action. It demands bipartisan action. This is an 
area where we can act now and act effectively. We should. The clinics I 
spoke about are an area where we can act now and act effectively in a 
bipartisan way. We should.
  I also applaud Senator Inhofe, who may be coming to the floor, for 
his leadership on this clinics issue. We need to authorize those and 
move on with them and get that done.
  I also thank Senator Rubio, who will be speaking later about the 
legislation he has that has already passed the House to give the 
leadership--the new leadership, thank goodness--of the VA the authority 
they need to take dramatic action when necessary, to clean house when 
necessary, and get people in place who are going to make a difference 
in that broken bureaucracy.
  So let's act now, in a bipartisan way, where we can. Again, that is 
absolutely possible in these areas, including these 27 outpatient 
clinics in 18 States, the 2 in Louisiana that I discussed.
  We have complete agreement in the Senate on the substance of these 
clinics. We have legislation that has already passed the House. So 
please, Senator Sanders, release your obstacle, release your blockade. 
Let's move forward. Let's agree where we can agree. Let's act where we 
can act, here and now, and continue to work on those other vital areas 
where we also need agreement.
  There is a common saying: Time is money. Well, in terms of what we 
are talking about, time can be lost lives. We have seen cases of that, 
documented cases of that with regard to veterans who were waiting for 
so long they died. Time in health care can be lost lives.
  This past week, as I traveled in Louisiana, I had a townhall meeting 
in New Orleans, among other places, and a New Orleans police officer--a 
female police officer--came and told me about the case of her father 
who, because of a lack of attention and time lapsed in the VA system, 
died, literally died directly related to that. Her name is Gwen Moity 
Nolan, and although she has lost her father, she wants to make sure 
that does not happen to any other veteran's family, that what happened 
to Richard Moity does not happen to others. Her case was looked at by 
the VA, and they admitted fault, they admitted negligence, and they 
actually reached a substantial settlement with her over their lack of 
attention to her father. But she really wants to make sure that does 
not happen to any other veteran's family. She came to me pleading: Can 
you make sure they have taken the necessary steps to fix those problems 
in the New Orleans VA?
  So I have written to the VA and said: I want to see the results of 
that investigation with regard to Richard Moity. You say you have taken 
corrective action? I want to understand exactly what that corrective 
action is.
  Time is money? No. In this case, time can be lost lives--the life of 
Richard Moity, the lives of veterans in Arizona, the lives of veterans 
around the country for whom inattention, delay, and lack of 
responsiveness in the VA system meant lost lives.
  So let's not delay here in the Senate. Where we have agreement, let's 
move, let's act. We have agreement on these clinics. We have agreement 
on action to address the VA backlog Senator Heller talked about. Let's 
act. Let's move because delay can lead to serious consequences in 
health care, even the loss of life.
  I thank Senators Inhofe and Rubio, who may be coming to the floor 
later to talk about these issues, for their determined work. I look 
forward to moving on this issue. I look forward to Senator Sanders 
hopefully reaching agreement on a broader set of proposals, including 
this clinics issue, in the very near future, and if not, I will be back 
to the floor demanding action on these clinics within a few days.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from Vermont is 
recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Leahy relating to the introduction of S. 2428 are 
printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and 
Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I do not see anybody seeking recognition, 
so 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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the 69th straight 
consecutive week that the Senate has been in session to try to wake us 
up to the harm that carbon pollution causes to our oceans, to our 
communities, to our ecosystem, and to our health.
  The effects of climate change are all around us, from melting 
glaciers in our national parks, to drought-stricken land across the 
American Southwest, to rising seas along my eastern seaboard. In 
Washington, DC, the iconic cherry blossoms are blooming earlier. Snook, 
native to South Florida, are being caught off the coast of Charleston; 
tarpon and grouper off the coast of Rhode Island.
  This is all happening now--not tomorrow, not sometime in the distant 
future but now--right now. Projections show that it will get much worse 
in the coming years unless we wake up and take real action. Happily, 
this week, the Environmental Protection Agency used its Clean Air Act 
authority as established by Congress and affirmed by the Supreme Court 
to propose carbon pollution standards for the country's existing 
powerplants.
  Before this, there were no carbon pollution limits--believe it or 
not--none. As you can see on this chart, the 50 dirtiest U.S. 
powerplants--this is the whole U.S. powerplant fleet. These are the 50 
dirtiest powerplants. They put out more carbon than Korea, which is a 
pretty industrialized country. They put out more carbon than Canada, 
our neighbor to the north.
  I congratulate the administration on developing these smart, sensible 
limits that will put our Nation on a better path economically and on a 
better path environmentally. Thank you to the scientists, the 
engineers, the staffers, the attorneys, and the experts who invested so 
much time and energy in developing this historic standard. Through an 
unprecedented public engagement, EPA held more than 300 public 
meetings, working with stakeholders of all kinds and all across the 
political spectrum.
  The result: EPA has put the States in the driver's seat to come up 
with their own plans to meet State-specific targets. States and power 
companies will have a wide variety of options to achieve carbon 
reductions, like boosting renewable energy, establishing energy savings 
targets, investing in efficiency or joining one of the existing cap-
and-trade programs. States can develop plans that create jobs, plans 
that cut electricity cost by boosting efficiency, plans that achieve 
major pollution reduction.
  What is not to like? Already, a diverse array of groups support the 
new EPA pollution standard. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 
a letter to Administrator McCarthy wrote: ``These standards should 
protect the health and welfare of all people, especially children, the 
elderly, as well as poor and vulnerable communities, from harmful 
pollution emitted from power plants and from the impacts of climate 
change.''
  The Catholic bishops went on to point out that ``the best evidence 
indicates that power plants are the largest stationary source of carbon 
emissions in the United States, and a major contributor to climate 
change.''
  We are also hearing from 600 State and local elected officials who 
recently

[[Page 9467]]

sent a letter to the President in support of the EPA plan. These are 
the mayors, council members, and State legislators for whom climate 
change is a day-to-day reality at home right there in their 
communities.
  The letter is signed by officials from both red States and blue, 
including Texas, Iowa, Arizona, and the ground zero of climate change 
in this country, the State of Florida. The business community has 
weighed in. Over 125 companies including American giants like Nike, 
Levi's, and Starbucks sent a letter of support for the new rule.

       Our support is firmly grounded in economic reality. The new 
     standards will reinforce what leading companies already know: 
     climate change poses real financial risks and substantial 
     economic opportunities and we must act now.

  VF Corporation is an American apparel manufacturer in North Carolina 
whose brands include North Face, Timberland, Wrangler, and many others. 
``As a company that makes innovative apparel and footwear for people 
who love the outdoors, we know how important addressing climate change 
is to our consumers, and therefore, our business,'' said Letitia 
Webster, VF's director of global sustainability. ``Today's rules 
provide the long-term certainty that VF needs to continue to invest in 
clean energy solutions so that we can do our part to reduce the impacts 
of climate change.''
  Major utilities are behind the new rule. Tom King, the President of 
National Grid, which serves my home State of Rhode Island, said:

       The Obama administration, through the good work of EPA 
     Administrator Gina McCarthy and her staff has worked in a 
     transparent manner to craft regulation that promotes 
     environmental and human health through a host of clean energy 
     options. Rather than picking winners, this proposed rule 
     supports market-based solutions.

  Major public health groups agree. Here is what Harold Wimmer, 
national president and CEO of the American Lung Association had to say: 
``For the 147 million--nearly half of all Americans--already living in 
areas with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, curbing 
carbon pollution emissions is a critical step forward for protecting 
public health from the impacts of climate change happening today.''
  As widespread and broad as the support is for this rule, not everyone 
is applauding. Big polluters have enjoyed a long and happy holiday from 
responsibility for the carbon pollution they have dumped into our 
atmosphere and oceans. This free pollution they have enjoyed emitting 
is a market failure, a market failure recognized even by groups as 
conservative as the American Enterprise Institute--a market failure 
which allowed these polluters to dump billions of dollars in costs and 
harm on their fellow Americans.
  They did this to their fellow Americans without apparent shame or 
regret, and they are fighting desperately to preserve this loophole. 
They do not want you to know that we can achieve these reductions 
responsibly. They do not want you to know that we can do this and help 
our economy. Indeed, before the proposed rule was even available to 
examine, the climate deniers at the so-called U.S. Chamber of Commerce 
said it would cost electricity customers hundreds of billions of 
dollars and zap the U.S. economy of tens of billions in GDP and 
hundreds of thousands of jobs.
  Do not believe it. These claims are exaggerated at best and flat out 
false at worst. Do not just take my word for it. Republicans, citing 
the chamber's report--of course some of our colleagues jumped to cite 
that report. When they did, they earned a PolitiFact ``false'' and four 
Pinocchios from the Washington Post fact checker.
  The problem with the big polluters is that they only look at one side 
of the ledger. They ignore the costs of carbon pollution on the rest of 
us. These costs are real. People see them in their lives, in real lives 
at home in our communities--damage to coastal homes, roads, and 
businesses from rising seas and erosion; asthma attacks in children 
triggered by smog, sending them to the emergency room; forests dying 
from beetle infestations and swept by unprecedented wildfire seasons; 
farms ravaged by worsened drought and flooding. Our side of the ledger 
counts too.
  If the big polluters were accountants and they filed financial 
statements that only looked at one side of the ledger, they would go to 
prison. But this is politics, so without consequence or shame or 
regret, they ignore the harm they cause the rest of us.
  If the Chamber of Commerce and the big polluters want to talk about 
jobs, let's not forget about the jobs they hurt by their carbon 
pollution. Fishermen in Rhode Island have seen their winter flounder 
catch nearly disappear in recent decades as the water temperature in 
our Narragansett Bay has risen 3 to 4 degrees. That is an ecosystem 
shift for these species.
  Actually, there are now more jobs in clean, green energy than in oil 
and gas, more jobs in solar than in coal mining.
  This rule is a job creator in innovation and clean energy. The 
polluters just won't count that side of the ledger.
  It is an old story: tobacco, seatbelts in cars, acid rain, lead 
paint, ozone depletion, and more. Same old strategy: Muddle the 
science, manufacture doubt, manufacture cost, exaggerate the costs, and 
ignore the economic benefits.
  The Clean Air Act, according to a 2011 EPA assessment, will benefit 
Americans more than it costs by a ratio of 30 to 1, $30 of value in 
preventing hospital visits and premature deaths, avoiding missed work 
and school days, improving environmental quality, helping people live 
healthier, more productive lives--$30 of value to Americans for every 
$1 they had to pay in cleanup costs.
  Opponents of clean air standards have been proven wrong time and 
again. Here is the bottom line: Excessive carbon pollution is bad for 
our health, bad for our environment, and bad for our economy, even bad 
for our national security, if you read the Department of Defense's own 
Quadrennial Defense Reviews.
  The largest source of carbon pollution in the United States is 
powerplants. Until now there were no limits on the carbon pollution 
these plants could spew into our atmosphere and oceans. This week 
changes that. If the big polluters don't like the change, many of us 
will work with them on a legislative alternative. Perhaps as many 
Republicans support an economywide price on carbon pollution, which 
could generate a financial benefit for taxpayers and even provide 
transition assistance to affected industries. But they can't just keep 
dumping their pollution on the rest of us. Doing so might be free for 
them, but the costs are too high for us. Their long holiday from 
responsibility has to come to an end. It is time for them to wake up.
  A number of my Republican colleagues have come to the Senate floor to 
respond to the administration's proposal. Those of us seeking to stave 
off the worst effects of climate change welcome this opportunity to 
engage in a bipartisan discussion on the challenges of climate change.
  In the past, Republican colleagues have coauthored and voted for 
bipartisan climate change legislation. They have spoken out in favor of 
a carbon fee and, of course, our Republican colleagues represent States 
such as Florida that are every bit at risk from the effects of climate 
change as States represented by Democrats. So we think our Republican 
colleagues could have a lot to offer if they wish to join us in 
exploring solutions.
  A number of us have requested that time after votes on Monday, June 
9, next Monday, be reserved for us to engage in a robust, bipartisan 
exchange of views about carbon pollution. We invite all our colleagues, 
Republican and Democrats, to join us then on the floor. We hope to find 
the Republican Party in the Senate is not a uniform monolith of climate 
denial.
  We earnestly believe the costs of failing to exercise American 
leadership and solve this carbon pollution problem are very high, 
terribly high, with ramifications for our health, safety, economic 
well-being, our food and water supplies, and our national security and 
standing.

[[Page 9468]]

  I look forward to a vigorous discussion on Monday. I hope my 
colleagues show up.
  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. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Today I would like to discuss the nomination of Sylvia 
Burwell to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. I am going to 
make some criticisms of her performance and the background she lacks in 
taking on this huge agency.
  I have met with her, worked with her some as OMB Director. I like 
her, and she is courteous and capable, so I am not talking personally 
in any bad way about her, but this is an important agency, one of the 
most important agencies in our Nation. The Secretary of Health and 
Human Services oversees several of the largest programs in the entire 
Federal Government. Crucially, the Secretary is also the person tasked 
with implementing the President's health care law. It is essential that 
anyone who fills this position possess great skill, relevant 
experience, proven managerial experience, and who will act with 
independence and in the best interests of the American public--one who, 
at this critical time, puts country over politics. They cannot be a 
political loyalist, but they must be someone of stature, integrity, and 
sound judgment who is willing to tell the President no if asked to 
circumvent the law, provide false information, or otherwise act against 
the public interest.
  From the President's own perspective, he needs desperately someone 
who is able to evaluate these major programs such as ObamaCare with 
wisdom and tell him and help him--and particularly tell the American 
people the truth.
  Ms. Burwell does not have the background one associates with a 
position of this magnitude. She just does not. Nor does she possess the 
specific skills critically needed today. The OMB office she now holds 
has 500 employees. HHS has 72,000.
  Aside from her short tenure at the Office of Management and Budget, 
which has just been 13 months, she is just now beginning to find her 
way around, presumably, that office. She has never run any major 
department, any major health care department, a department or an 
agency, a major business, a significant city, or a State. There are 
many very capable people in this country who would be much more ready 
to assume the august responsibilities of this job.
  It appears her most significant health care role prior to this was 
serving as a board member--part-time board member--of a local 
university medical center.
  In fact, 2 months ago in a Budget Committee hearing, Ms. Burwell 
declined to answer a basic health care question until she said she 
would seek Secretary Sebelius's expertise on the matter, but she never 
provided that answer anyway.
  Her time as Director of the Office of Management and Budget was 
controversial. The budget plan she submitted to Congress plainly 
violated the spending caps Congress and the President agreed to and 
passed into law. She produced a budget plan that would increase 
spending by nearly $791 billion over 10 years. That is above the Ryan-
Murray agreement that passed in Congress that set these spending limits 
just a few weeks before, including, in that budget, a proposal to 
increase spending by $56 billion over the budget next year.
  As the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, I have been 
involved in this and observing it. To my dismay, she went to enormous 
lengths during her testimony before the committee to try to conceal 
this increase in spending. It was very amazing to me.
  On the day the President's budget was submitted, the Associated Press 
reported that the plan Ms. Burwell authored ``lays waste to the 
spending caps that the White House and Congress agreed to late last 
year.''
  Also at the same time The Hill reported the budget this way--Obama's 
``$3.9T budget busts spending limits.''
  Remember, Ms. Burwell was the Director of Office of Management and 
Budget. Her staff produces the budget and defended the budget.
  It goes on to say in the first paragraph the truth of the situation 
in The Hill. The article is by Erik Wasson.

       President Obama on Tuesday released a $3.9 trillion 
     election-year budget blueprint that would bust the bipartisan 
     budget ceiling agreed to in December with $56 billion in new 
     stimulus spending.

  This was 10 weeks after they had agreed to one level of spending. She 
walks in and produces a budget that is $700-, $800 billion almost more 
in spending over the budget of 10 years, and $56 billion more the next 
year.
  When I asked her about that, apparently it was politically sensitive. 
Apparently they had decided they didn't want to admit they were 
spending more money. The Associated Press says they did. Politico said 
they did. The budget they submitted that was in law--laid before the 
Budget Committee--plainly demonstrated it spent more than they agreed 
to spend.
  I asked her about it. It went something like this. It was a very long 
exchange. It was frustrating for me. I will quote from some of them, 
because I think we need to understand these issues. I asked her about 
the spending excess:

       Mr. SESSIONS. So you're proposing that we alter Ryan-Murray 
     [that is the law that set new spending limits, allowed more 
     spending than we previously agreed to, but it continued to 
     set some limits] so you can spend $56 billion more next year 
     alone. Yes or no; is that correct?
       Ms. BURWELL. We propose a paid-for [initiative] . . .
       Mr. SESSIONS. Can't you answer that question simply? Yes or 
     no? Do you propose to spend $56 billion more than Ryan-Murray 
     allows?
       Ms. BURWELL. Senator, we do propose a change in the law 
     that would be fully paid for that would invest in things that 
     we believe are necessary for the economic health of the 
     nation.
       Mr. SESSIONS. Do you want to spend more than the President 
     agreed to when he signed the Ryan-Murray 10 weeks ago?
       Ms. BURWELL. Senator, we signed Ryan-Murray . . .
       Mr. SESSIONS. Now, I'm just asking, yes or no; are you 
     [spending] more or less?
       Ms. BURWELL. Senator, I think there are some questions that 
     are not simply yes or no questions . . .
       Mr. SESSIONS. This one is a yes or no question. You're 
     refusing to answer it . . .

  I simply asked a public servant who is paid by the taxpayers: Are you 
spending more money than the Ryan-Murray budget had agreed to and the 
President signed? And she refused to answer. It was really frustrating. 
But I think it is indicative of the fact that they were allowing 
politics to interject itself here--because the White House didn't want 
to admit, and she stood up for the White House and wouldn't admit it. 
But, as Politico says, it plainly was true that they were spending 
more.
  So rather than acting as an independent steward of taxpayer dollars 
and simply telling the plain truth to a simple question, she acted as 
an extension of the President's campaign arm--advancing their spin 
without honestly acknowledging the clear and plain facts to the 
American public asked by a representative of the people of the United 
States. There was no doubt that they spent more money than Ryan-Murray 
would allow, but they never acknowledged it because she politically did 
not want to admit it.
  The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is more than a 
political position. The Director serves the President, yes, but it is 
at bottom an important public servant, and the person who holds that 
job must act as a disciplined manager of taxpayers' dollars and do so 
with clarity and openness. The Director is managing the world's largest 
budget.
  However, Ms. Burwell submitted a financial plan--a budget--that would 
have increased spending more than $700 billion above the current, 
agreed-upon, in-law budget levels while, amazingly, suggesting her plan 
reduced spending. It was a tax-and-spend budget that would have added 
$8 trillion to our debt

[[Page 9469]]

while doing virtually nothing to reform the entitlement programs 
heading for impending insolvency. It completely busted the budget law 
the President signed. It was a grossly irresponsible plan.
  According to Ms. Burwell's own budget submission, the plan would have 
caused interest payments on the debt to nearly quadruple, from $221 
billion in interest paid last year alone to more than $800 billion 10 
years from now. So this is really a serious matter. There is no attempt 
to balance the budget in her plan even over 10 years. Indeed, it flatly 
rejected the very idea of a balanced budget.
  Additionally, despite her public commitment during her confirmation 
that she would deliver the budget in accordance with the legal 
deadlines, the President's budget was again delivered more than a month 
late.
  Importantly, Ms. Burwell failed to comply with Federal law requiring 
her to submit Medicare improvement legislation after the Medicare 
trustees issued their funding warning. Medicare is heading to financial 
ruin. The law says that if Medicare reaches a point where its future is 
financially in doubt, it must notify the President, and the President, 
through his Office of Management and Budget Director, is supposed to 
submit to Congress a plan to get Medicare off the path to disaster. It 
was submitted to President Bush. He submitted a plan to Congress to fix 
Medicare. But this President has steadfastly refused to do so, and so 
did Mrs. Burwell as his Office of Management and Budget Director.
  It states that within 2 weeks of the budget submission, legislation 
must be sent to Congress to comply with this so-called Medicare 
trigger. It requires a plan to fix the program. During her confirmation 
as OMB Director, she was asked about this duty she was going to have, 
and she made a commitment to respond and produce the Medicare trigger. 
Specifically, she said she would ``do everything in her power'' to 
comply with the Federal law, bringing an end, in effect, to the 
administration's several-years-long defiance of plain law.
  As the President's Budget Director, under 31 USC, 1105, Sylvia 
Burwell was the person responsible for complying with the Federal law. 
Having willfully violated this requirement, it is ironic now that, if 
confirmed as Health and Human Services Secretary, she will serve on the 
board of trustees of the Medicare trust fund, she will be responsible 
for overseeing their finances, and she will be issuing to her former 
office--OMB--the same funding warnings that the administration received 
and ignored while she served as budget director.
  Ms. Burwell has also violated law and denied Congress needed 
transparency with respect to the President's troubled health care law. 
Specifically, the Omnibus appropriations bill signed into law in 
January required HHS to include in its fiscal year 2015 budget a 
detailed accounting of spending to implement the health law. Fair 
enough. But neither the budget Ms. Burwell delivered nor the agency 
justification that later joined it satisfied the requirements set in 
law. They should do that. They are public servants. They should tell us 
how to handle the problems of financing in health care law.
  As OMB Director--the budget submitted to the Congress by Ms. Burwell 
reclassified the budgetary treatment of the ObamaCare risk corridor 
program without statutory authority to do so. Under this approach, it 
appears HHS attempts to escape congressional accountability for its use 
of certain funds. So this is a clear violation of the congressional 
power to appropriate money, and it is pretty clear that to fund this 
program they are going to have to ask Congress to fund it. But by 
moving this around, they are attempting to spend money without asking 
Congress to appropriate it--against the Constitution.
  Regrettably, it seems Ms. Burwell followed a consistent pattern. 
Rather than using OMB as the central agency to reform this massive, 
out-of-control spending government, to stop wasteful spending and tame 
the debt--as former OMB Directors such as Mitch Daniels and Rob Portman 
did; now-Senator Portman submitted a balanced budget when he was OMB 
Director under President Bush--she has not submitted any reforms to 
bring our government under control in OMB.
  One of the concerns I had about her appointment was that it is such a 
critical part of our government, we have to have a strong OMB Director 
to control this massive government and control wasteful spending. That 
is the President's right arm. That is the person who brings the Cabinet 
Secretaries in to say: You are spending money. I hear complaints about 
waste. I hear about duplication. The President wants you to fix this.
  We saw none of that under her leadership. Her tenure at OMB evidenced 
no drive to even tackle the magnitude of our financial challenges. She 
proposed to bust the spending caps that Congress and the President 
agreed while trying to suggest otherwise. She ignored the Medicare 
trigger. She tried to put a positive spin on a dangerous financial plan 
instead of trying to actually solve the serious financial challenges 
facing our country today.
  With ObamaCare in chaos and disarray, threatening the very economy 
and the health care of Americans by the millions, what we desperately 
need in this key position is someone who will be independent, 
forthright, and honest, someone who will resist political pressure from 
the White House, and someone who knows what they are doing. This 
position demands that we find one of the best and most respected health 
care experts in the world. That is what we should be looking for. Ms. 
Burwell, as nice as she is, sadly, is just not that person. She does 
not have those skills.
  ObamaCare was passed into law on a series of egregious falsehoods. 
The American people intuitively recognized that this was an overreach 
and would not work, and the American people are now paying the steepest 
of prices for this complex, failed piece of legislation. One of the 
falsehoods was that it would not add to the debt--not a dime, the 
President said. Well, we now know it would add more than $6 trillion to 
the long-term debt of the United States. That is a huge amount of 
money.
  A Secretary of Health and Human Services must tell the American 
people the truth about the law's finances. If they fail to do so, if 
the Secretary will not acknowledge the truth and the challenges that 
our finances face, then the entire future, financially, of America will 
be at risk.
  So I believe Ms. Burwell is a good and well-meaning person. Senators 
Manchin and Rockefeller from West Virginia like her, and Senator Wyden 
of the Finance Committee and I like her. But I cannot support her bid 
to control the health care future of millions of hard-working Americans 
by placing her in charge of this massive agency that so desperately 
needs mature, aggressive, strong leadership--somebody who understands 
these issues before they take the job. I will vote no on her nomination 
as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Massachusetts is 
recognized.
  (The remarks of Ms. Warren pertaining to the introduction of S. 2432 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Ms. WARREN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The Senator from Ohio.


                          Concern for Veterans

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, during Memorial Day and last week, I spent 
much of the time traveling Ohio with Michael Fairman, a retired Navy 
corpsman and a Columbus resident, who served with the Marines in 
Afghanistan from 2007 to 2011. His son Zack is a third-generation Navy 
corpsman serving with the Marine Corps First Tank Battalion deployed in 
the Middle East.
  Based on his own combat experiences and his concern for other 
veterans and the suicide of a friend, a fellow veteran, Mr. Fairman 
came to my office with an idea of how we can help both servicemembers 
and veterans--veterans like Alexander Powell, a student

[[Page 9470]]

at the University of Toledo who joined us in Northwest Ohio. Mr. Powell 
was deployed in Iraq in 2006 when his gun truck was struck by an IED. 
He had no physical or visible injuries. He went back to duty the next 
day, but he began experiencing blackouts and dizzy spells. It wasn't 
until 2009 that he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and 
hospitalized to begin treatment.
  Mr. Powell is not alone. The VA reports that some 300,000 veterans 
struggle with post-traumatic stress. The Defense Department reports 
that out of 300,000 TBI injuries, there are 25,000 cases of what they 
call mild traumatic brain injuries because mild TBI is an invisible 
injury. Think of an NFL player getting a concussion or a series of 
concussions over a period of a career. Think of a soldier getting what 
a number of soldiers said to me--marines and air men and women and 
soldiers and sailors talk about getting their ``bell rung'' when they 
get a head injury. It is an injury that is not serious enough for an 
NFL player to sit down, not serious enough for a soldier to be sent 
home, perhaps not serious enough for a soldier to get any medical 
treatment at all, but one of a series of concussive events of invisible 
or minor head injuries can lead to problems a number of years later.
  So when veterans or servicemembers seek service-connected 
disabilities for related injuries, they often don't have the necessary 
documents needed to establish the connection between their military 
service and their claim with the VA. That was the case for Mr. Powell. 
He told me last week:

       It was my job [after returning home] to gather up any proof 
     that I had to show that my truck was hit by an IED and gather 
     statements from people who were there to corroborate my 
     story. That is a task, if not done immediately after the 
     incident, that is almost impossible to accomplish.

  So 5 years, 6 years, 7 years later, Mr. Powell is back in Ohio trying 
to piece together the series of head injuries he sustained, what 
exactly happened, finding witnesses, his unit commander, and comrades 
to be able to prove to the VA that his disability is earned and 
warranted and trying to explain to his doctor what his head injuries 
might have entailed. The burden is on the veteran to provide the VA 
with information establishing the connection between their claim and 
their service. This can lead to denied claims. It can lead to improper 
medical care. It increases the disability claims backlog.
  We are all concerned--even though the VA has shrunk that backlog by 
50 percent in the last year or so, we also know that one of the reasons 
for the backlog at the VA is it takes so much more time for the VA 
employee and the soldier to try to piece together the record of 
injuries that might have taken place 5 years ago, a decade ago, a 
decade and a half ago. That is why I introduced the Significant Event 
Tracker Act, which Mr. Fairman helped to create. This bill will improve 
the claims process for veterans and servicemembers. Mr. Fairman visited 
a number of House and Senate offices. The only one who responded was 
actually Senator Cornyn's office, from Texas. He and I have talked 
about this bill, and we both understand how important this can be to 
veterans. Let me explain the bill.
  First, it would allow unit commanders to document events, such as a 
roadside bombing, that each servicemember in their command is exposed 
to and which might later be connected to these ``invisible injuries.''
  Second, recording this information on an individual basis will help 
military medical officers better diagnose and treat military members 
who have mental health concerns.
  Finally, for veterans and military retirees, this act will help them 
file better initial claims--claims with supporting documentation from 
DOD. In other words, veterans should be able to focus on their 
recovery, not on having to prove the cause of their injury.
  Let me say that again. A soldier going to the VA in Dayton, OH, or 
Cincinnati or to a veterans clinic in Mansfield should be able to focus 
on her recovery and not having to prove the cause of her injury. This 
bill puts the responsibility on the Army, on the Marines, on the 
Defense Department, not on the veteran, to track and connect 
significant events to individual servicemembers that would later 
potentially lead to post-traumatic stress or to traumatic brain injury. 
Commanders already report major injuries. We want commanders to report 
about individual servicemembers who were involved in any kind of a 
minor or ``invisible'' head injury.
  This was a big idea that came to me from Michael Fairman. He visited 
a number of Senate offices and House offices. Senator Cornyn showed 
interest in it. My office has written the legislation with Michael 
Fairman. This Nation is rightfully proud of our veterans. This idea 
came from a veteran. This idea deserves to be seriously entertained by 
this Senate and, frankly, by the Defense Department, if we can work 
with them, on finding ways to implement some of these ideas.


                  25th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square

  Mr. President, I rise to commemorate an event that happened 25 years 
ago today not just in Beijing, China, but in other places in China when 
millions of people across that country, in Tiananmen Square and other 
places, rallied in support of democracy, human rights, and an end to 
official corruption.
  Like many Americans, I was inspired. At the time, I wasn't a Member 
of Congress. Living in Ohio, I was inspired by the courage and pursuit 
of individual fundamental freedoms--freedoms that we hold dear in this 
country and sometimes take for granted, that are not always granted in 
other countries around the world. I recall the optimism of that moment 
and how it was crushed when the tanks rolled in.
  Today we assess what the last 25 years meant to the Chinese but also, 
more importantly, to U.S.-China relations and what our policy should 
be. China has made tremendous leaps forward in the past 40 years since 
normalization, but following Tiananmen Square we have missed 
opportunity after opportunity to integrate China into the global rule-
based community of nations to protect our economic interests and to 
move China in the right direction on political reform.
  It is not an easy task, but 25 years later China is still 
fundamentally undemocratic. It too often refuses to play by the rules--
rules that would benefit China short term and long term. The question 
now is whether China will address the challenge facing it or will it 
continue to take a more doctrinaire and hardline stance, one that 
undermines the progress China has made and, because of China's 
influence, could undermine the global system and regional stability.
  In many respects China has reaped the benefits of open trade with the 
rest of the world while avoiding many of its obligations. Our trade 
deficit with China at the time of Tiananmen Square 25 years ago stood 
at $6 billion; that is, we bought from China $6 billion in goods more 
than we sold to China. Last year it grew to 50 times that amount--$318 
billion--the highest ever. That means almost every single day of the 
year on the average, every single day of the year, we buy from China 
$900 million more in goods than we sell to China. That trade deficit 
and China's currency manipulation has cost Americans millions of jobs 
and significantly reduced our Federal budget.
  I know what unbalanced, unfair, and not playing on a level playing 
field trade with China has done to places such as Springfield, OH, 
Marion, OH, and Chillicothe and Lima, and my hometown of Mansfield, and 
Ravenna, OH, all over my State, all over the Midwest, all over the 
country. In the end, we compromised as a nation too much. We bought 
into the myth that China's economic integration after Tiananmen Square 
would bring about human rights and respect for the United States and 
international rules. That is not what has happened.
  Through the commission I chair, the Congressional Executive 
Commission on China, we have tried to honor the memory of Tiananmen 
Square by making sure that China's obligations toward human rights and 
the rule of law are not forgotten.

[[Page 9471]]

  The commission highlighted many concerns: cyber theft threats to 
democracy in Hong Kong, illegal, unfair trade practices, denial of 
visas, or threats of denial of visas to foreign journalists, food 
safety, environmental, and public health concerns, a crackdown on human 
rights activists, including Ilham Tohti, a peaceful activist for the 
Uyghur minority group in Tibet.
  It is my hope we have an open and transparent debate about our China 
policy. Whether it be on trade agreements, where we continue to be on 
the short end every single year, or whether it is about growing Chinese 
foreign investment in this country, this debate must be given proper 
weight rather than ignoring our concerns over human rights, the rule of 
law, labor, public health, and the environment.
  Above all, the debate about U.S. policy toward China must include all 
segments of our society and not the way we typically do trade 
agreements in this country, supported by newspaper publishers, 
economists at Harvard, but not fundamentally supported by the American 
people and the public.
  Our workers and small businesses need to be included, NGOs and human 
rights groups, instead of being led by powerful interest groups such as 
large corporations. Debate needs to be inclusive and it needs to draw 
on the interests and aspirations of all parts of American society.
  More must be done as we honor 25 years in the memory of Tiananmen 
Square. The world must continue to seek improvements on China's record 
of human rights and the rule of law. More must be done. Only by 
recognizing the legitimate aspirations of its people and the 
obligations of the international system can China assume the role to 
fit its history and its size.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                           Freedom of Speech

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, in the wake of some recent Supreme Court 
decisions touching on our system of campaign finance, there has arisen 
in the Senate, frankly, this bizarre notion that we are going to amend 
the Constitution to undo the Bill of Rights, and particularly the First 
Amendment and its protection of the freedom of speech.
  Of course, the proponents don't describe it that way. To hear the 
majority leader, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee 
yesterday, he said: They are merely trying to keep what he called dark 
money out of American politics.
  By giving Congress the ability to regulate political speech and the 
means by which that is paid for and disseminated, this amendment would 
invite all manner of partisan mischief and abuses and effectively 
dismantle one of the most fundamental liberties secured by our 
Constitution which makes America the envy of the world, and in many 
ways unique in that we protect freedom of speech without regard to the 
content of the speech and without regard to the identity of the 
speaker, whether they be rich, poor, or a member of the middle class. 
Whether that opinion is informed or not necessarily well-informed, we 
believe in the marketplace of ideas where the American people are the 
only judge as to what they believe the truth is. We don't try to stifle 
or squelch speakers, particularly in the political process.
  As our good friend the Republican leader said yesterday:

       If incumbent politicians were in charge of political 
     speech, a majority could design the rules to benefit itself 
     and diminish its opponents. And when roles reversed, you 
     could expect a new majority to try to disadvantage the other 
     half of the country. And on it would go.

  So this power the majority leader has proposed in amending the 
Constitution so Congress could regulate political speech could be an 
instrument of incumbent protection where the party in power could use 
that as a weapon against the minority trying to persuade the country 
that they should be restored to the majority rather than linger as a 
minority.
  Is this really the kind of system our colleagues who are proposing 
this constitutional amendment want? Well, you have to ask whether they 
have any realistic belief that this will actually become law. And of 
course it would have to pass both Houses of the Congress by a two-
thirds vote, and it would have to be ratified by three-quarters of the 
States. I don't think it is an overstatement to say they have no chance 
of this becoming law.
  Why in the world is such an outlandish proposal being made by 
somebody such as the distinguished majority leader of the Senate and 
other folks in his party? Well, it is no exaggeration to say this 
proposed amendment would undermine American democracy as we know it, so 
there has to be some other reason other than the substance of the 
amendment they are trying to get at.
  Lest we forget the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to ensure 
that all political speech--as a matter of fact all speech, period--is 
protected from government interference, and that is why it is in the 
Bill of Rights, at the time our country was founded there was a serious 
debate about whether we needed an explicit Bill of Rights or whether 
the very structure of our government with its checks and balances and 
our shared power between the judicial, executive, and legislative 
branches would itself provide that protection. But the Federalists 
said, no, we are not going to settle for that. We want an explicit 
protection of those rights that are not derived from government but 
which precede government--which don't come from government but come 
from our Creator.
  Under the logic used by the proponents, the government should change 
this provision in the Bill of Rights that has been the law of the land 
for more than 200 years and now start regulating how much money 
newspapers, magazines, and Web sites are allowed to spend on articles 
concerning politics and public policy. After all, when media outlets 
publish this information, they are using their financial advantage over 
ordinary citizens to be able to get their views out to the public. And, 
of course, they are trying to persuade citizens and voters and trying 
to affect political outcomes, both in terms of public policy choices 
and elections.
  The majority leader, if he were on the floor, might say: Well, we 
have a provision in here that we will not grant Congress the power to 
abridge freedom of the press. If you could turn off and on the money by 
which the press disseminates its point of view, if you can regulate 
perhaps even to the point of zero on the part of political actors and 
their ability to disseminate their views in the public or influence 
voters before the election, this carveout is effectively meaningless.
  It would most certainly grant Congress the power to abridge the free 
speech of individuals and groups as disparate as the American Civil 
Liberties Union, the National Rifle Association, and the Sierra Club, 
which obviously have different views but enjoy and are entitled to the 
same freedom to speak their views and persuade people to their point of 
view as much as anybody else. It would also grant Congress the power to 
abridge other freedoms in the First Amendment, such as freedom of 
assembly and freedom to petition government for the redress of 
grievances, and it would allow State governments to ride roughshod even 
over freedom of the press.
  You have to wonder why in the world would intelligent, highly 
educated, experienced Senators--people who are knowledgeable about all 
of the matters I have talked about--propose such a wrongheaded idea and 
one they know will never become the law of the land?
  Well, unfortunately, this is part of an effort to intimidate and 
stigmatize people from participating in the political process. We know 
the majority leader comes out to the floor and talks daily about the 
Koch brothers, whom he happens to disagree with, and he disagrees with 
their right and ability to participate in the political process and to 
affect elections. He doesn't talk about other political actors, such as 
organized labor, which has essentially been carved out of the 
limitations on political contributions and political spending. He 
doesn't talk about people such as Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund 
manager who says he will spend

[[Page 9472]]

$100 million against anyone who supports the Keystone Pipeline or 
anyone who opposes his views on climate change.
  This cherry-picking in terms of trying to intimidate people and to 
squelch political speech is pretty apparent. It becomes apparent 
because obviously the majority leader is very worried about the 
upcoming midterm election and what might happen when we see the 
pushback from voters in the Senate races all across the country over 
the last 5 years, and this great, huge growth in government and its 
intrusiveness in their lives.
  Here is the bottom line: Free speech is free speech, period. To quote 
a recent Supreme Court decision:

       There is no right more basic in our democracy than the 
     right to participate in electing our political leaders.

  As they said, there is nothing more basic.
  As I mentioned a moment ago, thankfully the Founders were wise enough 
not only to give us the Bill of Rights and our Constitution but to make 
it very difficult to amend it in the first place, so we know the 
majority leader's amendment has no chance of actually passing. Yet its 
mere introduction, the fact that a major political party and a majority 
in the Senate apparently believes in shrinking the First Amendment in 
order to weaken their political opponents, should be a cause of 
broadspread concern in the country. People ought to ask the question: 
Why in the world would you propose to do something as draconian and as 
damaging as that?
  Well, it is the kind of amendment we would expect to see not in the 
greatest deliberative body in the world, and certainly not in the 
Senate, but maybe some banana republic or some country that does not 
have our experience or our foundation in constitutional self-
government. Therefore, it is not merely enough to reject this amendment 
and then quickly move on to something else. We need to send a clear, 
unambiguous message that the Bill of Rights is not up for debate. We 
need to send a clear, unambiguous message that our First Amendment 
freedoms represent the bedrock of American democracy, and we will not 
agree to undermine that, damage it, or otherwise impair it on our 
watch.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if my friend from Wyoming wishes to speak, 
we will go through the process for 3 or 4 minutes, and we will put the 
Senator on what we call automatic pilot if he cares to speak.
  Mr. BARRASSO. I will be less than 2 minutes.


            Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding 
rule XXII, on Thursday at 1:45 p.m., all postcloture time be expired 
and the Senate proceed to vote on the confirmation of Calendar No. 798; 
further, that following the vote on that nomination, which is Burwell, 
the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 519, and the 
Senate proceed to vote on the confirmation of the nomination; further, 
that if confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and 
laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no 
further motions be in order to the nominations; that any statements 
related to the nomination be printed in the Record, and that the 
President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. With this agreement, there will be two rollcall votes 
beginning at 1:45.
  Mr. President, we are moving this up because we have 10 or so 
Senators who are going to the 70th anniversary of Normandy.

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