[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13450-13454]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today as the chair of the 
Appropriations Committee to talk about several challenges facing our 
country.
  First, I wish to respond to the comments made by many of the Senators 
this morning on the compelling need to pass supplemental appropriations 
to help Israel replenish the rockets it has used in its Iron Dome 
missile defense system. I am an unabashed, unrelenting supporter of 
that effort.
  For many years, as a U.S. Senator on the Appropriations Committee, on 
the Defense Subcommittee, as well as as a member of the Intelligence 
Committee, I know how important the Israeli missile defense system is, 
including Iron Dome, David's Sling, and others that are absolutely 
crucial. I worked hands-on with Senator Inouye--the late great Senator, 
a Congressional Medal of Honor winner--to make sure we funded the 
missile defense system for Israel and to work on a bipartisan basis 
with Senator Stevens and Senator Cochran. We worked together, and thank 
God it worked. We also implemented an agreement signed by President 
Bush with the Government of Israel that we would always help Israel 
maintain its qualitative edge. We have done it, and I am proud of it.
  Now more than ever an antimissile defense system that has worked 
needs to continue operation. We know the technology works, but they 
need to make sure they have the tools to make the technology work--
these additional rockets.
  We know Israel is under attack. It has always been under attack since 
its very founding. This is not an existential threat; this is not an 
abstract threat; it is a daily threat. We know Israel is trying to 
defend itself against the grim, unrelenting attacks by Hamas--a self-
avowed terrorist organization that has sworn in its documents not to 
allow Israel to continue. They absolutely oppose an independent Israeli 
State.
  This month we are commemorating the Warsaw uprising. The Presiding 
Officer is a member of a group we affectionately call the Polish 
Caucus--those of us who have a relationship with the Polish Government, 
one of our greatest supporters in the NATO alliance. We recall that 70 
years ago people were willing to fight back against the Nazis, rising 
out of the sewers of the Warsaw ghetto to be able to fight them off 
with sticks and stones and out-of-date weapons, working to liberate 
Poland from Nazis oppression.
  Miles away, in places such as Dachau, Auschwitz, and others, there 
were the death camps. We are 1 year away from commemorating the 
liberation of the death camps. We know that as those people marched out 
of those death camps, they made their way into Palestine, which became 
the State of Israel.
  We were the first Nation to recognize the necessary and rightful 
place for

[[Page 13451]]

Israel to exist as an independent government and forever and a day the 
homeland for the Jewish people so they would be safe from terrorism and 
what occurred.
  I am for this whole Iron Dome supplemental, and we need to do it, but 
it cannot be the only thing we put in this supplemental. We have 
neighbors right now hurting in our own country--our Western States with 
wildfires raging over hundreds of thousands of acres, land being 
depleted, local resources for first responders being exhausted, local 
funds being worn down. We have to--we have to--be able to respond to 
the Western border.
  Then there is the crisis at our border, and the crisis is at our 
border because of the crisis in Central America.
  So when we move on the supplemental, let's look out for the great 
State of Israel, let's look out for our neighbors who are facing 
wildfires, and let's look out for what is going on at our border.
  But, Mr. President, I came to the floor, first of all, to compliment 
Senator Sanders for the outstanding job he did working on a bipartisan 
basis to pass the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 
2014. What a great job they did, out of a scandal--a terrible scandal--
affecting our Nation's veterans, where they had to stand in line simply 
to see a doctor in the very country they fought to defend.
  Now they have found they have had to defend themselves against VA 
bureaucracy and in some places duplicitous action.
  Well, the Sanders bill goes a long way, again, working on both sides 
of the aisle and both sides of the dome. Gosh, when we do this, this is 
why I wanted to be a Senator. I know this is why many others wanted to 
be a Senator: coming here, working on concrete problems, shoulder to 
shoulder, on a bipartisan basis, hands across the aisle, hands across 
the dome. And they did it. When this bill is passed, we will reduce the 
long wait times for veterans, we will increase doctors and nurses and 
specialty providers. It will allow veterans to see local providers if 
they have been on a wait list for an extended period of time or have to 
drive 40 miles to be able to get to a VA clinic.
  Boy, do I know that when I look at some of the rural areas.
  We are going to pay for it with $10 billion in mandatory emergency 
funds. Mandatory emergency funds, that is the way to do it.
  The Sanders bill will go a long way in increasing personnel and also 
in expanding a number of clinics--27 new clinics. So I think it is 
great.
  But as important as that bill is--and it is an important step--it 
cannot be the only step we take this week. I am so excited that 
shoulder to shoulder, again, if we work together, we can do a trifecta 
for our veterans. We can pass the Veterans Access, Choice, and 
Accountability Act--new opportunities for health care, where veterans 
do not have to stand in line. Also, we are going to vote today on 
Robert McDonald to give the VA a new Secretary, a new CEO, new 
leadership, hopefully new energy, new vitality, and new ways of doing 
business, bringing the practical know-how of the private sector to 
meeting our mission. But as important as those two are, I also come as 
the chair of the Appropriations Committee to say, why don't we take a 
third step that really will do the job? Let's pass the VA MILCON 
appropriations bill so we can actually put next year's funding in the 
Federal checkbook rather than just putting VA on autopilot? We can 
actually make a big difference with the new accountability, expansion 
of care bill, but that will take days, weeks, months to put in 
operation. Right this minute we could pass the VA MILCON bill as well 
as giving new leadership.
  I come here because I really do want to move the VA MILCON bill.
  The Appropriations Committee works through its subcommittees. And, 
wow, I have two great leaders on the VA MILCON Subcommittee, the 
chairman and ranking member, two outstanding Senators: Senator Tim 
Johnson of South Dakota and Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. They have 
worked so assiduously on coming up with a bill for funding our veterans 
for fiscal year 2015. It is an outstanding bill. But right now we are 
out there in the wilderness. We have moved it through the subcommittee. 
We have moved it through the full committee. It passed unanimously. We 
are out in the ethers waiting to come to the floor. Johnson and Kirk, 
Mikulski and Shelby, we are like people with our noses pressed against 
the glass. We see it within our grasp but we cannot get through. All we 
want to do is help to complete the job we are trying to undertake 
today.
  As much as the bill will be that Senator Sanders worked on, without 
the VA MILCON appropriations bill, the veterans will lack key tools to 
expand care, important support personnel that allows the doctors and 
nurses to do their job, important technology to run contemporary 
institutions. By the way, the bill we are going to be working on, the 
Sanders bill, is focused on health care, but we on the Appropriations 
Committee dealt not only with aspects of that but also the terrible 
backlog on veterans disability.
  Mr. President, veterans disability--not only do you have to stand in 
line to get health care, but you are standing days, weeks, months to 
get your disability claim. You have lost an arm or a leg or you cannot 
breathe or you have PTSD and we cannot get your disability processed. 
This is unacceptable. What we do in the VA bill is come up with the 
funds to really modernize the VA.
  First of all, just in terms of health care, to complement the Sanders 
bill, we have money in there to develop state-of-the-art technology so 
the doctors can provide medical health care, to make sure we have the 
modern equipment and the modern IT systems.
  Right now, we need to be able to have DOD talking to the VA because 
veterans come from DOD. But we have an interoperable system. We work to 
fix this. We also deal with this backlog. You have no idea, Mr. 
President. My State of Maryland and my office in Baltimore have not had 
a good track record. I vowed to my veterans that I would try to break 
that backlog. And you know what. Working together we have been able to 
do this.
  In the fiscal year 2015 bill, we fund an appeals process, we train 
additional claims processors, we require the management at the Veterans 
Benefit Administration to deal with the backlog, working with the new 
Administrator. We have not only great ideas, but we actually put the 
money in the Federal checkbook. Johnson-Kirk did it. Do you know how 
they did it? Yes, talking to the VA, reviewing tons of GAO and 
inspector general reports, and guess what else they did. They talked to 
the veterans. They talked to these wonderful volunteer service 
organizations.
  So I am going to propose something later on today or later on this 
week. I do not want to be the chair of a committee who has her face 
pressed up against the glass looking longingly at the Senate floor with 
a bill I know will help the Veterans' Administration with the heavy 
lifting to deal with the health care and disability backlog. Because I 
believe in no surprises and no stunts, later on today or later on this 
week, I will ask unanimous consent to bring up the VA MILCON on third 
reading to be able to compliment what we are doing here today. I want 
to be able to do that and I hope no Senator will object to it.
  Now, just again, in the spirit of full disclosure--because I truly 
have pledged to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle I would never 
be a surprise chair and I would never be one to pull gimmicks or 
stunts--I am going to ask that consent. I want people to know about it 
so they can discuss it, chew on it, talk at their respective luncheons.
  When I ask unanimous consent, I am going to ask that it be brought up 
on third reading. Why am I doing that? Because under the rules of the 
Senate, if you bring up a bill on third reading, there are no 
amendments. So the question would be: Senator Mikulski, are you trying 
to stiff-arm again? No. I am trying to get the job done. I am not 
trying to stiff-arm the opportunity to offer amendments. But we have 72 
hours left before we take this really

[[Page 13452]]

long break--really long, long, long, very long--did I say ``long''--
break. I do not think, when you need health care for veterans, when you 
need to modernize technology, when you need to crack the backlog--while 
we are kind of basking in the Sun somewhere--I do not want them in 
line.
  So either this afternoon or sometime tomorrow, I will ask unanimous 
consent. I will turn to my 99 colleagues, and in the spirit of really 
meeting compelling needs of our veterans, I will ask that bill come up 
so that as we move through the other two aspects that we are going to 
do to help veterans, we can do the VA MILCON bill.
  So I wanted to come to the floor today to talk about how we support a 
treasured ally, how we look out for our neighbors in the West fighting 
our wildfires, and how we deal with the crisis in Central America, 
where children are being victimized and brutalized every day so they 
are making the long march across that terrain and territory to come to 
the United States of America.
  So I hope in the short time the Senate is going to be in session this 
week and this month and even this year we could use this week to meet 
the needs that are confronting us, but, most of all, I would hope we do 
not just do part of the job for our veterans; we do this trifecta that 
I am recommending: passing the Veterans Accountability Act, the health 
care act; give us a new CEO; and have a chance to pass the VA MILCON 
bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I want to associate myself with the 
remarks of the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, my 
chairwoman, Senator Mikulski.
  I would add perhaps one particular point; that is, this Senator will 
be basking in the Sun in Illinois during the recess, and I invite the 
Senator from Maryland to come join us any time she would like to. But 
it will not be in ordinary vacation climes; it will be in my home 
State. I am sure the Senator is going to be spending a lot of time in 
hers as well.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. If I could respond to the Senator from Illinois, yes, I 
am staying in Maryland because I had hoped we would even be working on 
conference reports and so on. But while the Senator is in Illinois and 
I am in Maryland, most of all, we do not want our veterans standing in 
line for their health care or their disability benefits. So shoulder to 
shoulder, forward together.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank Senator Mikulski.
  Mr. President, this supplemental appropriations bill is important. It 
is timely. One of the provisions in it is an additional $225 million 
for the Iron Dome defense. The Iron Dome defense is a joint effort by 
the United States and Israel to protect Israel from rocket attacks. 
Imagine you are living in your hometown and a neighboring State or 
neighboring town just fired 2,000 rockets into your hometown. These are 
not Fourth of July rockets; these are deadly rockets that kill. You 
want some protection. The Iron Dome provides protection for Israel.
  This joint effort by the United States and Israel has been 
successful. Despite 2,000 rocket attacks, the casualties on the Israeli 
side have been minimal, relatively minimal, and it is because of the 
Iron Dome defense.
  What attacks does Israel face today? Well, they face Hamas attacks 
from Gaza. Hamas is an organization which the United States 
characterized as a terrorist organization almost 20 years ago. We know 
Hamas. We know their tactics. What they are doing is putting rocket 
launchers in civilian neighborhoods near hospitals and apartments and 
homes, and they are launching these missile attacks on Israel and 
daring them to fire back into civilian populations.
  Iron Dome protects the Israeli population from the missiles being 
shot by Hamas in Gaza. Now the Israelis have invaded Gaza to go to the 
source to stop these rocket attacks.
  Sadly, during the course of this effort in Gaza, there have been 
casualties--some on the Israeli side, of course; but hundreds, maybe a 
thousand on the side of the civilian population in Gaza. This is 
because the strategy of Hamas is to put their armaments smack-dab in 
the middle of civilian populations. As has been said, in Israel, they 
use weapons to protect civilians; and in Gaza, they are using civilians 
to protect weapons. That has to come to an end. We have to have an end 
to the hostilities between Gaza and Israel. No nation--no nation on 
Earth--would sit still for 2,000 rocket attacks into their population. 
That is what Israel has faced over the past several weeks. But the 
people of Gaza also need much better than they are receiving when it 
comes to Hamas.
  Hamas, sadly, is engaging in tactics using human shields at the 
expense of the civilian population. When they are told about the 
civilians that are dying in Gaza, leaders in Hamas say: Well, they are 
martyrs for the cause. I will have to tell you, it would be very 
difficult for me to understand and explain to a family that has lost a 
child they love that their child has just become a martyr.
  This has to come to an end. The hostilities between Gaza and Israel 
have to end, I hope, in some negotiation and peaceful resolution. Maybe 
it is wishful thinking, but I do believe we need to make the effort. I 
commend Secretary of State Kerry for his effort at trying to engage 
Egypt and others in this conversation.
  The supplemental bill before us today provides more money for 
interceptor missiles for Iron Dome--to protect Israel--money requested 
by our Secretary of Defense, money which I support. As chairman of the 
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, we added some $350 million for 
Iron Dome defenses in the next fiscal year which begins October 1. This 
money is needed now because of the hostilities between these two 
countries. I certainly support it.
  A second part, the major part of this supplemental appropriation, 
deals with the humanitarian refugee crisis we have on our border. It is 
not often the United States faces a refugee crisis. Think back in 
history. The only refugees who come to our shores are usually from 
nearby countries: Haiti, Cuba. Occasionally, we have refugees coming 
such as after the Vietnam War, the Hmong people who were our allies in 
that war.
  But we are not like most countries in the Middle East, for example, 
that have a steady stream of refugees. The United States does not 
engage in refugee crisis alleviation because of our location and 
geography and our history. Seldom have we been challenged. But today we 
are challenged. We are challenged because in the first 6 months of the 
year 57,000 unaccompanied children--children--presented themselves at 
the border with Mexico. They were not trying to sneak in. They 
literally walked across the border and presented themselves to the 
first person in uniform.
  They were told to do that by their families. Why did they make the 
trip to the border as kids--by themselves--to present themselves? 
Because in three countries in Central America there is a state of 
lawlessness: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. Eighty percent of the 
children who have come to the border came from those three countries. 
They are not just coming to the United States, incidentally. There has 
been a 700-percent increase in refugees to adjoining Central American 
countries from those three countries.
  This has been going on for some time. But for the past 2 or 3 years, 
it has gone from bad to dramatically worse. We met last week with the 
Ambassadors from these three countries, and we talked about what 
created this. A lot of it has to do with the drug gangs--drug gangs 
that are transporting drugs through those countries for sale largely in 
the United States. These drug gangs have become powerful and rich, well 
armed and notorious for their barbaric tactics.
  They recruit young people into their drug gangs at the point of a 
gun. They mutilate those who even hesitate to join the drug gangs. God 
forbid it is your daughter, because they have a reputation for raping 
young girls. If they are not satisfied with their response, they kill 
them on the spot and

[[Page 13453]]

leave them in plastic bags by the highway. That is why many families 
are sending their kids away from this deadly violence.
  Two weeks ago I went to a shelter in Chicago. This was a transitional 
shelter where 70 children from the border are being held until they can 
be placed with their families in the United States or with some 
trusting family that takes up foster care. I saw these kids firsthand. 
Your image of them may be different than what you actually see.
  My wife said to me: Well, why do they not show pictures of these 
kids? Well, they try to protect their identity and confidentiality by 
not showing photos. But if you could see them, you would see children 
of all ages. There were five women who walked into the dining hall at 
this transitional shelter.
  They did not seem to me to be 14 years of age. Each one was carrying 
a baby. They were the victims of rape in Honduras. They were carrying 
these newborn infants in their arms, as they had done during the 8-day 
bus journey to get to the border. I asked some of the staff at this 
transitional shelter--I had been told that many of the families, before 
they send their young girls on this dangerous and sometimes deadly 
journey, give the girls birth control pills because they anticipate 
they will be attacked during the course of this journey. They said: It 
is true.
  What desperation would you have to reach before you turned your 
daughter loose under those circumstances? These families are literally 
trying to escape a burning home and sending their kids to the only safe 
and secure place they can think of.
  What do we need to do? First, we need to get to these countries and 
tell them: Stop. Stop these deadly journeys, these journeys which, 
sadly, lead to harm and even death for some of these children. Do not 
let this happen any more. We have to work with the governments of those 
countries to make it clear this is the wrong thing to do. It is wrong 
because once these kids get into America, they are not entitled to 
stay. They are not entitled to be citizens, unless, perhaps, they 
qualify for asylum. They are going to be sent back.
  After they are sent back to these countries, if they ever try to 
reenter the United States they can be found guilty of a felony. This is 
serious. So the notion that they can just come to America and stay here 
if they wish is not true. That is the first thing we need to do.
  The second thing we need to do is to stop the smuggling and the 
coyotes that are bringing these kids into the United States. They are 
charging these poor families in Central America thousands of dollars 
they do not have to bring these kids to the border. We have to work 
with Mexico to hold these coyotes and smugglers accountable.
  Third, I want to tell you, I think this really is key to our 
discussion. This is a test of who we are as a country. How many times 
in our history has the United States rallied for families and children 
around the world?
  Do you remember just a month or two ago in Nigeria when 300 girls 
were kidnapped by Islamic extremists? Members of the Senate from both 
parties came to the floor to protest outrage that 300 young teenage 
girls would be kidnapped by these extremists. We engaged at every level 
to let the world know America cared. It was not the first time. There 
is a long history of it. We have stood for families and children around 
the world for humanitarian purposes throughout our history. Look back 
to the refuseniks, the Russian Jews who were being discriminated 
against in the Soviet Union. The United States was one of the leading 
nations in the world to stand behind those families and those children, 
bringing them to the United States so that they could escape 
antisemitism and Communism.
  When you look at the victims of the Haitian earthquake, the United 
States was providing foreign aid to those families and children because 
we are, in fact, a caring nation. That is who we are. Throughout our 
history we have shown it. We need to show it again with these children. 
Some extreme American politicians have said: It is not our problem. Put 
them on a bus. Put them on a plane and dump them back wherever they 
came from--not our problem.
  God forbid that is the verdict of history, that the United States, 
when it saw vulnerable, helpless children, did not care. I think more 
highly of this country. I think we have proven over and over that we do 
care. There have been some extraordinary statements made about this 
crisis by many people. The one that caught my eye was from a friend who 
happens to be the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Deval 
Patrick was born in Chicago. Maybe that is why I am partial to him. But 
Deval Patrick spoke about Massachusetts and its feelings toward these 
children.
  He recalled moments of history. Here is what he said: My inclination 
is to remember what happened when a ship full of Jewish children tried 
to come to the United States in 1939 and the United States turned them 
away. Many of them went back to their deaths in Nazi concentration 
camps.
  He went on to say:

       I think we are a bigger hearted people than that as 
     Americans.

  I agree with Governor Patrick. President Obama has asked for 
resources to care for these children, to place them, to give them the 
right of seeking asylum if they can make that established legal claim 
and, if not, to return them, humanely, to the countries they came from. 
Two of the three Ambassadors we met with, incidentally, said they could 
not guarantee the safety of those children in Honduras or El Salvador, 
if they came back. Let's do the right thing and pass this supplemental 
appropriation. Let's provide the resources so these children are 
treated humanely, ultimately given their hearing, ultimately returned, 
in most cases, to the country they came from.
  How will history judge us? How will we be judged if, when these 
refugee children came to our border, they were turned away and sent 
back to harm, violence or even death?
  We do not want that to happen. That is not who we are as Americans. 
We care. We show it. Our government should show it as well. The Senate 
will get an opportunity to do that very soon--we hope maybe this day or 
this week--as we wind down the session.
  The last point I want to make is a tribute to two of my colleagues 
who have done an extraordinary job when it comes to the Veterans' 
Administration. I am referring to John McCain, my friend who came to 
Congress with me many years ago, the former Republican candidate for 
President and a conservative from Arizona. He teamed up with--of all 
people--Bernie Sanders of Vermont, self-styled independent socialist 
Democrat. How about that? Sanders and McCain sat down to solve the 
challenge facing the VA. God bless them. They did it. They are 
reporting a bill to us which is a dramatic improvement over the current 
VA system.
  We are now overwhelmed with the Veterans' Administration disability 
claims. Forty-five percent of the veterans coming home from Iraq and 
Afghanistan have filed a claim. We have tens of thousands of these 
claims pending, many of them for post-traumatic stress disorder.
  We have said, incidentally, that we are going to help all veterans. 
Some 400,000 veterans from other wars are making PTSD claims. In 
addition, we have those who served in Vietnam, exposed to Agent Orange 
and with nine different diseases being treated. We have those who were 
victims of Gulf War Syndrome being treated. We have homeless veterans 
who are now being brought in and counseled so they can get their lives 
back on track. It is an overwhelming responsibility which the VA has 
today.
  The Sanders-McCain veterans bill is going to address them by 
providing more resources for our veterans and more medical 
professionals, which we need. Remember--we all should every single 
day--that we said to the men and women who enlisted in our military and 
who volunteered: If you will raise your hand, swear allegiance to this 
country and risk your life, we will stand by you when you come home.
  We are going to keep our word. We promised. We are going to keep our

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word. This bill--this veterans bill that is going to come before us 
this week--does exactly that. Sanders and McCain met with the House 
conferees and worked out an agreement--an agreement which is going to 
benefit the Hines VA in Chicago with an additional facility which they 
need. There is an amendment which is going to help facilities all 
across this country serving our veterans--an amendment which says: If 
you happen to live too far away from a veterans hospital, we are going 
to find a way to make sure you get timely care that is near your home. 
I think it is the least we can do. We owe it to our vets.
  I tip my hat to my colleagues, Republican and Democrat alike, who put 
this together. I am looking forward to voting for it this week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I agree with my distinguished colleague, 
the senior Senator from Illinois. I think Senator Sanders and Senator 
McCain showed that things can get done around here. I think of the 
tremendous work the Senator from Illinois did last year and helped us 
get an immigration bill through this body. We had a large majority of 
the Senate vote for it--Republicans and Democrats alike.
  How I wish the leadership in the House had allowed them to vote on 
it. I think we would be in a far better position to deal with these 
problems with the DREAMers and with those seeking to come into our 
country. I applaud the Senator from Illinois for never giving up.
  Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator from Vermont would yield for just one 
moment. I want to thank him personally. As chairman of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, he has made a point of making sure the DREAM Act, 
a bill which I introduced 13 years ago, has had a fair hearing before 
the committee on more than one occasion and has been reported by the 
committee. It was part of that comprehensive immigration bill. I thank 
him for bringing it up.
  I just want to say for the record that one Republican Senator has 
said he wants to deport all of the DREAMers. He is in for a fight 
because these young men and women are proving over and over they can 
make a valuable contribution to this country. I thank the Senator from 
Vermont.
  (The remarks of Mr. Leahy pertaining to the introduction of S. 2658 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. FRANKEN. I yield the floor.

                          ____________________