[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17978-17984]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2016

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.R. 2029, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2029) making appropriations for military 
     construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related 
     agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016, and 
     for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Kirk/Tester amendment No. 2763, in the nature of a 
     substitute.
       Kirk amendment No. 2764 (to amendment No. 2763), to clarify 
     the term ``congressional defense committees.''

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 5:30 
p.m. will be equally divided in the usual form.
  The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I will defer my remarks until the 
chairman of the VA-MILCON appropriations subcommittee comes, and after 
he speaks, I will.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page 17979]]


  Mr. TESTER. 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for the quorum call be rescinded.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. TESTER. Thank you, Madam President.
  It will be some time before Senator Kirk arrives, so I do want to 
give my remarks for the purpose of other folks who would like to talk 
about this bill.
  I rise today along with Senator Kirk to usher the legislation through 
this Chamber, the VA-MILCON appropriations bill, as quickly as 
possible. I want to thank Senator Kirk for his work on this bill. As I 
said last week when we began debating the VA-MILCON appropriations 
bill, this legislation has huge significance. It marks a good-faith 
effort on behalf of this body to move forward with an appropriations 
bill that responsibly invests in our national security, our economy, 
and our country.
  I also think that, among all the appropriations bills to move 
forward, it is right and just that a bill to honor our commitment to 
our Nation's veterans be the first one to break the gridlock.
  I recognize that the VA-MILCON appropriations bill that came out of 
the committee last spring fell far short of what the VA needs to 
provide the care our veterans have earned. But now that Congress has 
passed the budget agreement, we have crafted a substitute amendment 
that will bring this bill closer to where it has to be to meet the 
needs of the brave men and women who have served this country. This 
amendment will provide an additional $1.9 billion for VA medical 
services. This amendment fixes a flawed bill.
  The bill passed out of the committee in May grossly shortchanged our 
veterans and undermined the ability of the VA employees to do their 
jobs, and that is one of the reasons I voted against it. Now, 6 months 
later, we are about to right the committee's wrong and make investments 
that we have known all along the VA needs. The money will help allow 
the VA to address an increased demand for hepatitis C treatments, 
bolster health care for rural veterans, and will ensure that we can 
better recruit and retain VA doctors and nurses in every State of the 
Union. It also provides better care for Vietnam veterans who are 
reaching retirement age and treats the physical and mental ailments of 
veterans returning home after 15 years of war in the Middle East. These 
are investments the VA desperately needs to do its job.
  Now, I know the VA has been under a microscope, and it should be. It 
is responsible for honoring a promise, and when that promise is broken, 
we need to do more than to say ``I am sorry.'' We need to fix it. This 
substitute amendment before the Senate will begin to right these 
wrongs, and you have my word that I and others will be scrutinizing how 
every dollar is spent because we can't afford to make these investments 
without knowing they are producing real results for the courageous 
servicemembers who have earned it.
  Colleagues are encouraged to provide amendments in a timely manner 
because we all would like to pass this bill before Veterans Day. Once 
we pass the bill, it will prove we are serious about living up to 
promises that we make to our Nation's veterans. It will empower VA 
employees to do their jobs and provide veterans with the care they have 
earned.
  It is not just health care. This bill will improve consideration of 
compensation claims for injuries suffered during their service. It 
gives the VA the tools to maintain our national cemetery system. It 
supports the Office of the Inspector General, which we need in order to 
ensure that the VA is living up to the demands that we have placed upon 
it.
  It adds $170 million for military construction. These funds will go 
toward additional projects to enhance our military readiness, 
particularly for the Air Force and its Reserve elements, and it will 
set the stage for future appropriations bills that responsibly invest 
in education, energy, infrastructure, and in our public lands.
  I am very happy that we are considering this bill today. Hopefully, 
we can finish this bill tomorrow, as we should. It will take some 
cooperation, but I think the Senate is finally ready for some 
cooperation. I look forward to that.
  I yield the floor.
  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. COATS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Wasteful Spending

  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I am back on the floor once again for my 
``Waste of the Week.'' I have been doing this for well over 20 weeks--
highlighting waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayers' money. It is said we 
cannot afford to cut another dime, that programs are too important.
  I question that since the Government Accountability Office, the 
Office of Management and Budget, and the congressional accounting 
office have all looked at various Federal programs and said: Why in the 
world are you doing this in the first place? It is no longer relevant. 
It is a waste of money. The function has already been taken care of.
  Today we are going to highlight yet another situation where this 
money ought to be going into either higher priority uses--such as 
Department of Defense or funding soldiers or veterans or something such 
as that--or not take it from the taxpayer in the first place. And as we 
document each week, our account keeps growing in terms of money that 
falls clearly into the category of waste, fraud, and abuse.
  Today's situation is a little bit different because the money is not 
being spent. Then the question is, OK, it is reserved for something, 
right? It was, but that action has been fulfilled. So why is that money 
still sitting there and who is using it or if it is not being used, why 
isn't it redirected and returned to the taxpayer?
  Let me talk about this program.
  Throughout our Nation's history, the United States has pursued 
various paths of energy development in order to power our communities. 
One of the ways we have pursued energy production is through uranium 
enrichment and nuclear reactors. Today, that is not a popular way of 
providing power.
  By the way, it is totally environmentally pure. There is no carbon 
dioxide, nitrous oxide, or any other emission issue here that is 
harmful to our environment. Yet we have suspended all this for various 
reasons--mostly the concern about a situation where it gets out of 
hand, even though today's technology can essentially provide safety for 
that.
  Nevertheless, when Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the 
United States Enrichment Corporation, USEC, was authorized and stood up 
to provide more privatized uranium enrichment services for the U.S. 
Government and utilities that operate these nuclear powerplants. And 
there are several dozen operating in the United States. Previously, 
this service was provided by the Department of Energy and its 
predecessor agencies, but now this law appropriated taxpayer dollars to 
a newly established USEC Fund, which is a revolving fund in the 
Treasury to carry out the purposes of this new organization, the United 
States Enrichment Corporation.
  The law also appropriated taxpayer dollars to the fund revolving in 
the Treasury to carry out their purposes. Let me describe this fund in 
a little more detail.
  Four years after the creation of the fund, Congress passed the USEC 
Privatization Act, which authorized the USEC's sale to the private 
sector--a pretty good move, I think. There are a lot of things the 
private sector can do more effectively and efficiently than the Federal 
Government. This was a privatization effort that was successful. It 
transitioned from a Federal to a private corporation, and today it 
operates as a private company, not a Federal company, separate from the 
Federal Government, under a new name; therefore, it is no longer under 
the control of the Federal Government.

[[Page 17980]]

  What has become of the money that was funded? The USEC Fund was 
authorized to pay for the expenses of the USEC's privatization and for 
the environmental cleanup expense for ``disposition of depleted uranium 
stored at government-owned enrichment plants operated by the USEC.'' 
That was a logical objective. We did not want this depleted uranium 
stored onsite. We needed to dispose of it. So we took the money in the 
fund and used that to take care of the uranium that was stored and that 
needed to be disposed of.
  Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office issued a 
report that said that the ``purposes for which the USEC Fund was 
authorized after privatization have been fulfilled, and the Government 
Accountability Office has not identified any other purposes for which 
the USEC Fund is currently available''--in other words, mission 
accomplished. Mission complete. No other use of the fund has been 
authorized, and so the money is just sitting there. There is a pot of 
money sitting in the fund that has no federally authorized use. 
Whatever you want to call it--a zombie fund, a fund that simply has no 
purpose--its life is over, yet it lives on.
  How much is in this fund? The GAO found that the USEC Fund's 
remaining balance is expected to be over $1.6 billion in 2015--not 
exactly small change.
  Predictably, the Department of Energy says: Ah, there is a pot of 
money. Why don't we use it for something else?
  Well, it is not authorized for anything else. It was money 
contributed from the Treasury to this fund for a specific purpose, and 
that was to clean up the environment, to dispose of the uranium, and to 
privatize the program.
  The GAO report further stated that ``DOE's effort to utilize USEC 
fund moneys instead of general fund appropriations to support a 
research and development effort would diminish transparency in 
budgeting.'' In other words, the Department of Energy is saying: Oh, we 
have a slush fund over here. Let's use it for something.
  Well, transparency and accountability are important when it comes to 
spending taxpayer dollars, and every one of us here in the Senate ought 
to be cognizant and recognize how critical and how important it is to 
spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars wisely, effectively, and efficiently 
and not request it from them if it doesn't have that purpose and 
achieve that purpose.
  By the same token, if we have a pot of money--$1.6 billion--sitting 
in a fund that has no authorized use, that ought to be returned. That 
ought to be returned to the taxpayer in one of two ways: one, directed 
to an absolutely essential need that only the Federal Government can 
provide, or two, it ought to go back to the taxpayer. It shouldn't be 
taken from the taxpayer. So since the authorized purposes of the USEC 
Fund have been fulfilled and Congress has given no new authority or 
appropriation, the money needs to be rescinded.
  I am not the only one supporting this course of action. The GAO 
recommends that Congress rescind the entirety of the $1.6 billion, and 
Congress has attempted to rescind this pot of money before. In fact, 
the House of Representatives included language in a 2014 appropriations 
bill to do so. But it is now time to actually return the money. There 
are attempts being made. If we can successfully achieve this, we can 
save the taxpayer--by rescinding this $1.6 billion, if we do that, we 
will then add up to our ever-growing total of wasted, abused, and 
fraudulently used money. In this case, this appropriated money--money 
sitting there waiting to be returned and rescinded--will bring our 
total to almost $119 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse.
  That ends the narrative this week, and we look forward to next week 
and bringing forward yet another waste of the week.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  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. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized for such time as I may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are having a lot of discussion, and 
people are lined up now talking about this event that is going to take 
place in the middle of December. It is going to be the 21st COP. It is 
a meeting that the United Nations puts on every year. It has been on 
for 21 years now. They are all saying: This is the time. This is what 
they say every time--for 21 years--that we are going to adopt something 
in this country.
  Prior to now they had been using legislation to reduce the emissions 
of CO2 and the devastation that will be on our economy. 
There is nothing different now--except everything. As time has gone by, 
it has not been their friend. We have the alarmists who really believe 
that the world is coming to an end because of global warming. Some of 
them actually believe that. For a lot of them, it is the thing to do. 
You have Tom Steyer with $75 million trying to resurrect this as an 
issue. There are some who really do believe it. The problem is, time is 
not doing them a favor because every time a week or a month goes by, 
somebody else comes out with some new information.
  A recent NASA study that was published in the Journal of Glaciology 
found that gains in the Antarctic ice sheets are much greater than the 
estimated losses. This runs counter to the IPCC 2013 report that 
suggests there was a net loss of ice on the continent.
  Let's look for a minute at what the IPCC is. The IPCC is an arm of 
the United Nations. They have put together these studies of people, and 
this has been going on now for more than 15 years. The only 
qualifications you need, I guess, to be one of the scientists is you 
have to believe in this.
  We have testimony from a lot of different members of the scientific 
community who have said that their position in opposition to the 
anthropogenic gases causing global warming, causing destruction of the 
Earth, has caused them not to be a part of this.
  There is no better evidence of that than in 2009 when they came out 
and made it very clear that the science they are dependent on was the 
IPCC, and it was totally discredited with what they call climategate. 
We have talked about this on the floor several times. I thought that 
would have ended it in 2009, but it didn't. I mentioned that background 
only because we have the Paris trip coming up, and there will be a lot 
of people going there to try to fortify their positions.
  Since the 1970s, the IPCC climate model historically predicted a 
significant increase in global temperatures, and we haven't really seen 
this. The frequent statements held up by the media showing each month 
that passes is the ``hottest month on record'' willfully ignore the 
margin of error contained within these datasets. Simply put, the 15-
year hiatus--the hiatus, as it is called--is showing that, yes, we went 
through a period of time when there was warming. Then all of a sudden, 
some 15 years ago--16 years ago, it leveled off and it hasn't warmed 
since that time. This has been a problem for the individuals who 
believe this.
  Let me go back. This is from memory, but I am sure it is right 
because I have said it so many times. The first time they talked about 
global cooling was in 1895. In 1895, they came out and said that we are 
now worried about a new ice age. They coined that term. They said that 
it is going to be catastrophic. Then about 20 years later--it was in 
2018--it changed. All of a sudden, there was global warming. There was 
a warming. This was the first time the term ``global warming'' had been 
used. At that stage, things were warming up from that point until 1945. 
In 1945, it was rather interesting because that was at the end of World 
War II, and another cold spell came in.
  The interesting thing about this is if you look back historically, 
the greatest surge in emissions of CO2 in America happened 
right after the Second

[[Page 17981]]

World War in 1945. That precipitated not a warming but another cold 
spell. In fact, they used the term ``ice age.'' In the 1970s, it 
started warming.
  If you follow this, about every 30 years this changes. God is still 
up there. We are still going to have a change in climate. What 
disappointed them, on the other side, is that all the things they have 
been saying about global warming--it stopped 15 years ago, and it has 
leveled off.
  Despite the clear evidence that the science of global warming is not 
settled, environmental alarmists are pushing ahead with an economically 
devastating agenda that is more about ideological outcomes than 
combating global warming. These efforts will come to a head at the end 
of this year when the United Nations hosts the 21st Conference on 
Parties, COP, session in Paris. With this upcoming international 
spectacle, we should not only be questioning the science, but also the 
intentions and promises each country is making.
  Just last week, China was exposed for underreporting the amount of 
coal it burns by about 1 billion tons a year for the last 15 years. As 
the New York Times stated:

       Even for a country of China's size, the scale of correction 
     is immense. . . . The increase alone is greater than the 
     whole German economy emits annually from fossil fuels.

  They are talking about just the increase of what China has agreed to. 
They are saying they are reducing some of their emissions. The increase 
that they admit is going to come will still be far greater than the 
whole German economy emits annually for fossil fuels.
  Then there is India, a country whose climate pledge is based on the 
premise that developed countries, such as the United States, will pick 
up these costs to the tune of $2.5 trillion over the next 15 years--
just over $160 billion a year. India stands to gain from American 
taxpayer dollars. Keep in mind that each year for the last 21 years, we 
have had about 192 countries come in, and their job--in order to come 
in and join the big party--is to say, yes, we are going to do something 
about reducing CO2 emissions.
  I have a lot of activity in Africa, and there is someone I know very 
well who lives in a little country called Benin, West Africa. His name 
is Luke. He was an official in Benin, West Africa.
  I went up to him and I said: How come you are at this thing? You know 
better than to believe in this whole idea of global warming.
  He said: Well, look. We have an opportunity to share in something 
like $100 billion because we are a minority country. Besides that, this 
is the biggest party of all every year.
  So we have these things that are the motivations for people coming 
in. Even the United Nations bureaucrats have been very candid about 
what they hope to achieve through the international climate 
negotiations, which has nothing to do with saving the environment.
  The former French President, Jacques Chirac, when addressing the 
Kyoto Protocol, described it as the ``first component of an authentic 
global governance.''
  Margot Wallstrom--I remember this because I was there at the time she 
said it--former EU minister, stated that international agreements are 
about the economy and ``leveling the playing field for big business 
worldwide.'' That has nothing to do with the environment.
  Most recently, Christiana Figueres, the U.N.'s top climate official 
when talking about the Paris climate conference said--she was running 
this thing for the United Nations--``This is probably the most 
difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally 
transform the economic development model, for the first time in human 
history.'' She is the person who is supposed to be making the case.
  Even the United States' global warming commitment to the 
international community is questionable. President Obama is committing 
the United States to cut its emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025. 
This promise is also just as questionable and hollow as what we are 
hearing from the countries I mentioned.
  The chart itself is self-explanatory. This is the gap that is in 
there. Not only does the President not have the backing of the Senate 
and the American people, but outside groups are finding that the 
President's method to achieve these reductions through climate 
regulations--primarily the Clean Power Plan--is faulty.
  According to a recent analysis by the U.S. Chamber, the President's 
intended national determination contributions, the INDC--that is what 
they used to say what commitments are being made--are about 33 percent 
short of meeting stated targets. On July 8, a former Sierra Club chief 
climate counsel testified before my committee--I chair the Environment 
and Public Works Committee--about his own analysis that has found an 
even greater gap.
  Right now, the Clean Power Plan is a regulation that is promoted by 
the President. Starting in 2002, they tried to pass legislation. After 
we analyzed this legislation, we discovered that it would have cost the 
American people somewhere between $300 and $400 billion a year.
  Whenever I hear a big number like that, what I always do is go back 
and get the latest figures from my State of Oklahoma as to how much 
this means to each family that files Federal income tax, and this 
legislation would cost each family about $3,000. That is a lot of money 
for the people in my State of Oklahoma. Yet, by their own admission, it 
is not going to accomplish anything.
  My colleagues might remember Lisa Jackson. Lisa Jackson was chosen by 
Barack Obama to be the first director of the EPA. I asked her a 
question right before the Copenhagen party in 2009. I said: Now, you 
are going to come out with an endangerment finding, and if you have 
this endangerment finding, who is going to be the scientist?
  She said: Well, the IPCC.
  I said: Well, assuming that you pass this legislation--they were 
trying to pass the cap-and-trade legislation that I just described, 
which would have cost between $300 and $400 billion at that time--will 
that reduce the CO2 emissions worldwide? Keep in mind, Obama 
chose her to be the director of the EPA.
  She said: No, it wouldn't do that because this isn't where the 
problem is. The problem is in China, India, and Mexico.
  In fact, you can carry it one step further. If you are going to have 
a reduction in it and then that chases our manufacturing base to other 
countries where they don't have restrictions, then those countries will 
be countries like China and India that don't have any controls on 
emissions, so it will end up costing even more.
  I mentioned that the President is going there in spite of where the 
American people are. This is very interesting because back in 2001 and 
2002, major polling showed that the No. 1 concern at that time was 
global warming. And now that same poll--this is the Gallup poll that 
came out in March--said it is No. 15, and that is dead last as far as 
Americans are concerned. The American people have caught on.
  The President is setting up the American economy to suffer great pain 
for no gain. The rising cost of energy will not only restrict access to 
affordable and reliable energy, but it will also undermine our 
businesses' ability to compete on a global scale and will ultimately 
ship jobs overseas to these other countries that will be increasing 
emissions for the next decade.
  The outcome sounds a lot like the United Nations bureaucrats' hope 
for ``leveling the playing field for big business worldwide.'' It was 
Margot Wallstrom who made that statement, and I quoted her a minute 
ago.
  It is no wonder the President is working so hard to circumvent 
Congress's role in committing the United States to an international 
agreement on climate change. He is playing to the wishes of the 
international community to include French Foreign Minister Laurent 
Fabius who, when talking about the forthcoming international climate 
summit, said that an agreement needed to be

[[Page 17982]]

reached that would allow the President to make a commitment ``without 
going to Congress.'' That is the whole idea.
  It is not just this one; there are other areas as well. Last week we 
were discussing the big water bill for a long period of time. 
Historically--always in this country--the control of water has been 
under State jurisdiction, and if it is under State jurisdiction, the 
only exception was navigable waters. About 5 years ago, there was an 
effort by a Senator from Wisconsin and a Representative Oberstar from 
Minnesota to try to pass legislation that would take the word 
``navigable'' out, and that would have meant that everything would go 
from the States back to the Federal Government. Not only did we defeat 
those bills, but both the Senator and House Member were defeated at the 
next election in 2010.
  The American people have caught on, and the summit is going to go 
forward, and I can assure my colleagues that we will have a big 
delegation from the United States of America at the summit and will 
talk about what America is going to do. Again, they are trying to do it 
through regulation. They tried to do the water rule legislatively, but 
they couldn't do it. So now the President is trying to do it with a 
rule. We have gone through this with ozone and other things. We will be 
faced with this, and clearly the President's agreement is about his 
legacy more than promoting a policy that is in the best interest of the 
American people. Americans need to not only question a science that is 
not settled, but a policy that is being used to appease 
internationalists at the cost of America's future prosperity.
  We have gone through this now for quite a while--I would say for the 
last 18 years or so. The problem we are having--and I see a lot of the 
young people here--is that so many of the young people actually believe 
this stuff. One of the reasons they believe it is that they are taught 
it.
  This is a terrible confession for me to make. I have 20 kids and 
grandkids, and one of them--I won't say which one--when she was in 
sixth or seventh grade came to me and said: Pop-I--the ``I'' is for 
Inhofe--why is it that you don't understand global warming?
  I said: Honey, show me why you are asking. She showed me the 
propaganda coming from the EPA and going through our school system. It 
is incredible.
  In spite of that, the facts are there, and it is not going to work 
any more this time than it did during the 21 last visits.
  With that, I will yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                      Defense Appropriations Bill

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, Veterans Day is approaching on 
Wednesday, and as the Presiding Officer knows, this is a very important 
day across the country. It is certainly an important day in my State of 
Alaska. Alaska has a statistic--I certainly like to talk about it a lot 
in hearings and on the Senate floor--of having the highest number of 
veterans per capita than any other State in the United States. It is 
truly an honor to be serving a State that has so many veterans who have 
served our country, and we look at Veterans Day as a very important and 
very somber day.
  We are also home to thousands of active duty military members and 
reservists--in large part because of our strategic location in Alaska.
  I was home, like a lot of Members of the Senate, this past weekend, 
and in Alaska we are already beginning to celebrate Veterans Day in 
churches, community halls, private homes, and parades. This weekend I 
had the honor of attending a few of these events. I went to a parade in 
Anchorage and a wonderful church service yesterday. It is so moving to 
see and hear from all of our veterans. Again, I had the opportunity to 
do that this weekend. I met with World War II veterans--the ``greatest 
generation''--Korean War, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cold War 
veterans.
  I went to a number of these events and an issue came up--an issue 
that I think is important for this body to know about since our 
constituents are asking about it: What the heck is going on in 
Washington, DC, where Senators are filibustering the funding of our 
troops? What is going on? It is a good question. It confirms something 
that I think a lot of us sometimes forget. We look at the procedural 
maneuvers here on the Senate floor--filibusters, blocking funding for 
our troops--and sometimes we think that the American people aren't 
watching. Well, they are watching, and our troops are watching. Not 
only are our troops at home watching, but importantly, our troops 
overseas who are literally risking their lives during this Veterans Day 
week, protecting our Nation, protecting us, and protecting our 
security. They are watching and so are their families.
  When Members of this body decide to block funding for our troops, 
known as the Defense appropriations bill, the people know it. They 
especially know it when it has happened on this floor not once, not 
twice, but three times. The minority leader on the other side of the 
aisle has decided to filibuster our troops three times in terms of 
their funding. What is really amazing about that is that bill came out 
of the Appropriations Committee with a huge bipartisan majority. The 
legislation to support our troops is very bipartisan. So, why? I was 
asked this back home. I truly could not provide a coherent answer for 
the veterans, for their families or for our troops.
  I have heard a number of reasons on the Senate floor as this was 
being debated. I believe the minority leader said it was a waste of 
time. I guarantee my colleagues that the vast majority of Americans 
don't agree with him on that. I heard something about Republican tricks 
with regard to the budget deal.
  I just don't know why we would filibuster the Defense appropriations 
bill that funds our troops three times, including one time last week. I 
wish the minority leader would come to the floor and give a simple 
answer for why he insists on continually filibustering funding for our 
troops during the week of Veterans Day and, more importantly, when 
thousands--thousands--of young American men and women are risking their 
lives right now--right now--defending this Nation overseas.
  Some people are starting to fear that Members of this body are not 
making our troops the highest priority. They are starting to fear that 
we are not concerned about the welfare of our troops and our Nation's 
security. Now, I don't believe that is the case. I have the honor of 
sitting on the Veterans Affairs Committee. I also serve on the Armed 
Services Committee, and I believe that is a very bipartisan committee, 
where everybody is focused on our national security and our troops. As 
a matter of fact, I talked to a reporter last week and told her how on 
the Armed Services Committee so many Members on both sides of the aisle 
come together and focus.
  We have veterans in this country who still carry scars of their 
military service who were not supported by the public, who were not 
supported by the Congress. In particular, many of our veterans who 
served in Vietnam came home and were ridiculed. They were not treated 
well. They were spit on. We can never ever go back to that shameful 
period of American history--never.
  This week we have important work to do on these issues. We have a 
Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill we will 
be voting on in the next few days. Again, that bill was previously 
filibustered. I don't know why, but it looks as though we are going to 
move forward on that. We have a defense authorization bill, which is 
hugely important for the men and women of our military. It was vetoed 
by the President. Again, it is not clear why the President vetoed it. 
We are going to take that up again.
  The bottom line is this: enough playing politics with our troops, 
their families, and our national security. It is time to come together 
during this week, of all weeks--the week of Veterans Day--to come 
together in a bipartisan way on these important bills that we are 
taking up this week to support our troops, to support our veterans, to 
support our national defense in the finest tradition of this body, in 
the finest tradition of the U.S. Senate.

[[Page 17983]]

Filibustering the Defense appropriations bill three times is not in the 
finest tradition of this body. We need to move beyond that. Doing so 
this week--the week of Veterans Day--will send an important message to 
the American people that we know what the highest responsibility of the 
Congress is. It is to defend this Nation and to take care of the troops 
and the veterans who have sacrificed and whom we honor this week.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator have Illinois.
  Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, I come to the floor to urge support by the 
Senate for the 2016 MILCON-VA appropriations bill.
  Last year this bill's funding for our veterans was $65 billion and it 
is now $71.2 billion. That is a $6.2 billion increase over last year. 
The President requested $70.1 billion for fiscal year 2016. This bill 
provides $1.1 billion more than the President's request for this 
upcoming legislation.
  Last week we agreed to debate this bill by an overwhelming vote of 93 
to 0. We have record-level funding to fix the disability claims backlog 
at the VA in this bill. There are new protections for whistleblowers, 
doctors, and nurses at the VA who are protected when they report 
patient abuse. This bill protects the protectors of our veterans.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Kansas is recognized for up to 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I truly appreciate that from the 
Presiding Officer.


                40th Anniversary of American Agri-Women

  Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the American Agri-Women who 
are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year. The American Agri-
Women officially began in November of 1971, with the Kansas Agri-Women 
one of the earliest State groups. Forty years later, the American Agri-
Women have grown to represent tens of thousands of women involved in 
all aspects of agriculture in all 50 States.
  It is rather amazing that membership includes women of all ages from 
many different professions within the agriculture industry. These 
talented women are farmers, ranchers, and consumers; they are students, 
accountants, educators, marketers, managers, researchers, and even 
elected officials, among many others.
  It is impossible to list all of the accomplishments these hard-
working women have achieved for the agriculture industry over the last 
four decades, but perhaps their biggest success has been initiating the 
national Agriculture in the Classroom Initiative--a program that 
continues to be widely implemented in schools all over the country to 
educate children on modern agriculture.
  Throughout the year, the Agri-Women have been engaging in their 
``Drive across America'' tour--a road trip across the country to spread 
the word of the vital role women play in agriculture. Their drive ended 
last week in Maine, where they hold their annual convention.
  During this tour, they also educated consumers on all the challenges 
that farmers and ranchers face and highlighted the role the United 
States plays in the global food system.
  I have had the opportunity to meet with many of these women and 
discuss the work of the agriculture committee during their stop in 
their trip to Washington. They met with many members of the committee 
and many others interested in agriculture. I hope all of my colleagues 
will join me in celebrating the last 40 years of American Agri-Women 
and the hard work of all of the women in our agriculture community, 
without whom the United States would be unable to provide the highest 
quality food, fuel, and fiber domestically and around a very troubled 
and hungry world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, the MILCON-VA Subcommittee bill that we 
will be taking up over the next day or so is critically important not 
only for our military from a readiness standpoint but also for our 
veterans. We are approaching Veterans Day this Wednesday.
  I hope we are able to put politics aside on this bill and do what is 
right not only for the military but for the men and women who have 
served this country in the military. If there are amendments that folks 
have, I would ask that they bring them to the managers as quickly as 
possible so we can go to work on them and clear them, if possible, and 
if not, push them off for another day.
  This is really an important piece of legislation. We continually talk 
about conflicts around the world and we continually send our men and 
women there, with no argument from them. They do a job we are all very 
proud of: protecting the freedoms of this country. The second half of 
that story is making sure we do right by them when they come back home. 
That is what this bill is about--doing right for our veterans when they 
come back into civilian society again.
  With that, I encourage the Members of this body to break from what we 
traditionally do; that is, play politics with a lot of things, and do 
what is right for our men and women who serve, our veterans, and for 
our military from a readiness standpoint in the bill within the MILCON 
component.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  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. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Affordable Care Act

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, we are in the beginning stages of open 
enrollment for the Affordable Care Act, which extends through January 
31, 2016. I wanted to briefly come to the floor today to make sure the 
body knows that over the course of the next 2\1/2\ months their 
constituents will have an opportunity to save hundreds if not thousands 
of dollars by shopping around and finding the most affordable plan 
available to them but to also make everyone aware that despite the 
overwhelming success of the Affordable Care Act--the uninsured rate in 
this country has dropped by 30 percent since its inception only a few 
years ago--there are still some who have not gone onto the exchanges 
and found a plan that can bring them into the ranks of those who now 
have affordable insurance for the first time.
  This is an important period for people across this country, but it is 
also a moment for us to reflect on what has happened over the course of 
the last 2 years, especially given all of those who were naysayers, all 
those who predicted the country would fall apart or at the very least 
the health care economy would fall apart after the passage of the 
Affordable Care Act. Of course, the exact opposite has happened.
  We have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of people who don't 
have insurance. We have seen people be able to gain enormous savings on 
the amount of money they spend on health care.
  We have seen the amount of money the Federal Government spends on 
health care dramatically reduced--a $1.2 trillion savings over the 
baseline when the ACA was passed, the amount of money the Federal 
Government is projecting to save over a 10-year period of time.
  We have seen quality get better. Indicators--from hospital 
readmissions to infection rates--are all going in positive trendlines 
because, of course, the Affordable Care Act isn't just about

[[Page 17984]]

getting people access to affordable care, it is also about transforming 
our payment system away from one that just bases our reimbursement 
system on the amount of medicine practiced to one that is actually 
rewarding the quality and outcomes that are gleaned as a part of our 
health care system.
  It is a triple whammy. More people have access to affordable care; we 
are spending less money than we had planned to spend, by dramatic 
numbers, from the Federal perspective; and we are getting better 
quality outcomes.
  Lots of us have ideas about how we can improve the Affordable Care 
Act, and we hope that with the legislative fights behind us and with 
the judicial fights largely behind us, we can now focus on ways to 
perfect this law. But there is no question that it is returning 
enormous benefits to people across this country.
  Here is just another quick way to look at it. As shown here, this is 
the percentage of uninsured by county across the country. Here is 2013. 
You can see that in almost every county, we have north of 16 percent 
uninsured. But look how quickly these numbers change. Look how quickly 
almost every county, at least in the sort of vast swath of territory 
from the Northwest across to the Northeast, moves down to 2015, where 
we have majority sections of the country with close to 10 percent 
uninsured--a 30-percent national reduction in the number of people 
without insurance. We still have these big gaps where people are in the 
coverage gap, people who are making so little money that they don't 
qualify for Medicaid but also can't get into the subsidies, but this is 
enormous progress all across the country. We can make more progress, 
and a lot of that comes through consumers being educated during this 
open enrollment period as to the choices in front of them.
  Here are some stunning numbers. Eighty-six percent of current 
enrollees--people who are on Affordable Care Act plans today--can find 
a lower premium plan at the same level before tax credits by returning 
to the marketplace to shop for coverage. If every consumer in the 
country went back and shopped for the lowest cost premium plan at the 
same level, the total savings across the country would be $4.5 billion. 
The average consumer--let's say you bought a silver plan last year and 
you decided to shop for a better deal this year--can save about $52 a 
month. That results in a savings of about $625 a year. So shopping can 
save you money.
  You might be satisfied with your plan--and the satisfaction numbers 
are pretty remarkable. Seventy-five percent of people who are on the 
exchange today report being wholly satisfied with their plan, which is, 
frankly, a higher satisfaction level than for those who are on private 
insurance outside of the exchanges. But even if you are satisfied, go 
back and look at the plans that are available to you. You can find a 
plan that will get you the same coverage for lower costs. Let's make 
sure people are getting that return on their investment.
  The good news is that there is more choice out there than ever 
before. Every year since the inception of the Affordable Care Act, 
plans have been added to these State-based and Federal exchanges. The 
average number of issuers on an exchange was 8 in 2013 and then 9 in 
2014 and then 10 in 2015. So choice for the average consumer is 
increasing. Now, there are certain areas in which choices maybe stayed 
the same or maybe in some areas choices have been reduced, but on 
average across the country, you have more choices today than you did 
before, so there is no excuse not to go back out and try to find a plan 
that saves you some money.
  In Connecticut, we are probably the poster child for effective 
implementation of the Affordable Care Act. We are a small State. We 
have a congressional delegation of only five in the House of 
Representatives. Yet we have had 700,000 Connecticut residents who have 
obtained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, either on 
the exchange or on Medicaid. We have gone from an 8-percent uninsured 
rate--so we were already on the low end--down to a 3.8-percent 
uninsured rate. That is a remarkable number over the course of just a 
few years. We only have so much progress we can make when we have under 
4 percent uninsured, but we have a goal of putting 10 to 20,000 people 
on the Affordable Care Act over the course of this open enrollment 
period.
  Nationally, because we have made so much progress, the goals are 
going to be modest compared to years past as well, but the point of 
coming down to the floor today is to say that at this point in the 
implementation, when we have made such great progress, we want to 
continue to try to kick down the uninsured rate. But the real benefit 
in open enrollment is going to come not simply by reducing the number 
of people without insurance but by making sure that everybody is on the 
plan that best represents their financial and medical needs. Again, 
that number--across the country, $4.5 billion could be saved between 
now and the end of January--is pretty remarkable.
  This Senator has been on the floor a number of times, along with my 
colleagues, to talk about the simple premise that despite all of those 
who have been rooting for the Affordable Care Act to fail, it has 
worked. It has worked from an empirical basis and an anecdotal basis. 
The statistics don't lie. There are dramatic reductions in the number 
of people without insurance, dramatic reductions in the pace of health 
care inflation, and dramatic improvement in the quality of medicine 
being practiced across the country.
  We all have stories of individuals from our State whose lives have 
been transformed by this act. There are parents who no longer have to 
worry about their children being locked into a future dictated by their 
illness, cancer patients who now know they are going to be able to have 
access to an affordable product and will never be denied access to 
health care just because of their illness, and taxpayers who see a 
trajectory of health care spending that is not going to bankrupt this 
country as fast as it would have had we not put changes inside this 
act.
  So open enrollment is open until January 31, 2016. I encourage all my 
Republican and Democratic colleagues to get the word out about this. 
Everyone has constituents who can benefit. Whether or not you support 
the Affordable Care Act, it is the law of the land and your 
constituents can benefit from it. We should all be out there talking 
about the potential for our constituents collectively to save almost $5 
billion if they shop on Affordable Care Act exchanges between now and 
the end of January.
  Thank you.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  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. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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