[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18013-18016]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               DRIVE ACT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair lay before the 
Senate the House message accompanying H.R. 22.
  The Presiding Officer laid before the Senate the following message 
from the House of Representatives:

       Resolved, That the House insist upon its amendment to the 
     amendment of the Senate to the text of the bill (H.R. 22) 
     entitled ``An Act to authorize funds for Federal-aid 
     highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs, and 
     for other purposes,'' and ask a conference with the Senate on 
     the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon.


                            Compound Motion

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to disagree to the amendment of 
the House, agree to the request from the House for a conference, and 
authorize the Presiding Officer to appoint conferees.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The bill clerk read the following:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     disagree to the amendment of the House, agree to the request 
     from the House for a conference, and authorize the Presiding 
     Officer to appoint conferees with respect to H.R. 22.
         Mitch McConnell, Mike Rounds, Lamar Alexander, Johnny 
           Isakson, Deb Fischer, John Cornyn, Chuck Grassley, Thad 
           Cochran, Joni Ernst, Cory Gardner, John Thune, Daniel 
           Coats, Orrin G. Hatch, John Barrasso, James M. Inhofe, 
           Thom Tillis, Roy Blunt.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
mandatory quorum call be waived.

[[Page 18014]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time 
between 2:15 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. be equally divided between the two 
leaders or their designees and that notwithstanding rule XXVIII, at 
2:45 p.m. the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the 
compound motion to go to conference; further, that if cloture is 
invoked, that the Senate agree to the compound motion to go to 
conference and that Senator Wicker be recognized to offer a motion to 
instruct the conferees; that there be up to 4 minutes of debate equally 
divided on the motion and that following the use or yielding back of 
that time, the Senate then vote in relation to the Wicker motion; that 
following the disposition of the Wicker motion, Senator Blumenthal be 
recognized to offer a motion to instruct the conferees; that there be 
up to 4 minutes of debate equally divided on the motion and that 
following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate then vote 
in relation to the Blumenthal motion.
  Mr. President, I ask to withhold my request until Senator Carper 
arrives.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I understand that a request is pending, 
and I would like to reserve my right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection to the majority leader's 
request?
  Mr. CARPER. I have a statement I would like to make at this point in 
time. If this is the appropriate time to do it, then I would like to do 
it. I would like to speak for 10 minutes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I renew my request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. CARPER. Reserving the right to object.
  Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. CARPER. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. INHOFE. There is a lot of mumbling going on. I am not sure what 
we finally decided to do.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I will speak for 10 minutes on 
transportation, and then we will have our caucus lunch.
  Mr. INHOFE. All right.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the 
remarks of the Senator from Delaware, I be recognized for up to 10 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Wicker). Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, something came to my attention today that 
I haven't seen before. Actually, it is a blog which was apparently 
written by Ben Bernanke, the immediate past Chairman of the Federal 
Reserve. He wrote it for the Brookings Institute, and he talked about 
one of the pay-fors for the transportation bill for which we will be 
sending conferees to discuss later today.
  As my colleagues may recall, the House passed a 6-year authorization 
bill for transportation--roads, highways, bridges, and transit--with 
funding for 3 years. When we sent our legislation over to the House, 
they came up with some new pay-fors. Frankly, it is not user fees, it 
is not even like pension smoothing, it is not like stealing TSA fees or 
Custom fees, but something new. They found money--about $40 to $50 
billion--in the Federal Reserve and said: Why don't we use that for 
transportation spending?
  Interestingly enough, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve has 
written about this issue, and it has been editorialized in today's 
Washington Post, among others. I will read a sentence or two out of 
Chairman Bernanke's comments, if I may, talking about the new pay-for, 
where we take money from the Federal Reserve and use it for 
transportation purposes.
  Here is what Chairman Bernanke says:
  More substantively--and this is what I want to focus on in the post--
``paying'' for highway spending with Fed capital is not paying for it 
at all in any economically meaningful sense. Rather, this maneuver is a 
form of budgetary sleight-of-hand that would count funds that are 
already designated for the Treasury as ``new'' revenue.
  Every year this extra money that the Federal Reserve has is turned 
over to the Treasury. In fact, it may be as much as one-half trillion 
dollars. That money goes into the earnings that the Federal Reserve 
makes, and at different points during the year, they turn money over to 
the Treasury.
  What the House language says here is that we are going to reduce that 
amount of money that would normally go from the Federal Reserve to the 
Treasury during some part of this year, and we are simply going to pull 
that money out and use it for transportation. Now, that money was going 
to go to the Treasury anyway. It was going to go from the Federal 
Reserve to Treasury anyway, and now we are going to sort of slip in and 
pull that money out and say: No, no, we are going to use it for roads, 
highways, and bridges. It is a sleight of hand. GAO is blowing the 
whistle on it as well, and I am delighted Chairman Bernanke is calling 
it for what it is.
  Look, we had the opportunity to pay for transportation projects. We 
had the opportunity to pay for roads, highways, and bridges, and to do 
it the old-fashioned way, and frankly, in a way that the chairman of 
our committee, Senator Inhofe, was in favor of. We have a tradition and 
history in this country of saying that things that are worth having are 
worth paying for, and people and businesses that use roads, highways, 
and bridges here in the past have said we ought to pay for the use of 
them. Now we are looking at a transportation bill that says: No, we are 
going to take money from TSA--TSA fee increases--and instead of using 
it to make our skies and aviation safer, we are going to steal 10 years 
of TSA revenues and put it over here in transportation. We are going to 
take money that ought to go to fortify our borders to make us stronger 
and better equipped so we can do a better job of finding out whether 
what is in the trucks is really produce or some other product, such as 
narcotics--our border crossings, where we have literally tens of 
millions of dollars' worth of trade going through trade every day--and 
instead we are going to take those revenues and put them into 
transportation.
  There is the idea of taking money out of the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve, where we pay $80 to $90 to $100 a barrel and are now selling 
it for about half that and using the proceeds from that--buy high, sell 
low--to pay for transportation.
  The latest trick from the House is to take the money out of the 
Federal Reserve when it is already going to go to Treasury anyway. 
Instead, we are going to take that money away from the Federal Reserve 
and pretend like it has no consequence. Well, actually that $50 or $60 
billion would have reduced the deficit. That is where it would have 
gone.
  This is not the way to do business. We had the opportunity to fully 
fund a robust transportation plan. Several of us--Senator Durbin, 
Senator Feinstein, and I--offered legislation, very much like Bowles-
Simpson, that would actually restore the purchasing power of the gas 
and diesel taxes in this country. We have not raised them since 1993.
  Since 1993, the Federal gasoline tax has been roughly 18 cents. It is 
now worth less than a dime because of inflation. The diesel tax, since 
1993, is worth less than 15 cents. Nominally, it is 23 cents. 
Meanwhile, roads, highways, and bridges are more expensive. Asphalt is 
more expensive, as is concrete, steel, and labor. Instead of being able 
to fund transportation in a genuine, honest kind of way, we are 
spending about $50 billion a year at the Federal level for 
transportation. It is about one-third of what is being spent 
nationally. Out of that $50 billion, we are only raising $35 billion 
through our user fees, and we just go out and borrow the money for the 
rest. When we run out of money in the general fund, we go around the 
world and borrow money from China and other places so that we can build 
roads, highways, and bridges.
  When the Chinese are mucking around in the South China Sea or the 
Spratly Islands or some of those other

[[Page 18015]]

places, we say: You can't do that. They say: We thought you wanted to 
borrow our money. If they are manipulating their currency or dumping 
their goods and products into our markets, we say: You can't do that. 
They say: We thought you wanted to borrow our money.
  We should not be beholden to them or to anybody else. We should fully 
fund transportation projects, and we could do that.
  The legislation that Senators Feinstein, Durbin, and I offered would 
gradually raise the tax on diesel and gasoline by 4 cents a year for 4 
years, and then index it going forward. How much money would that 
generate? That would generate about $220 billion over the next 10 
years.
  Our roads, highway, and bridges get D-plus these days. Why? Because 
about a quarter of our bridges are in bad shape and the service of our 
roads and highways is as well. People say they don't want to pay any 
more money for user fees on gas or diesel. Well, people paid less than 
$2 a gallon for gasoline at about 30,000 gas stations across America 
last week.
  My friends, as it turns out, if we actually did raise the price for 
gas and diesel by 4 cents a year for 4 years, what would the effect be 
in 2020--4 years from now--for average drivers? The out-of-pocket 
impact would be about the cost of a cup of coffee a week. Meanwhile, 
because our roads, bridges, and highways are in such lousy shape, we, 
as constituents--people who drive around this country--have an average 
cost of damage to our vehicles, tires, steering, and rims of our tires 
of over $350 a year. That is not my number; that is a real number.
  The other thing that is going on here is that we sit in traffic a lot 
in our country these days because we are not addressing our bottlenecks 
and doing what we ought to be doing in terms of upgrading our roads, 
highways, and bridges.
  Every year Texas A&M does an analysis. What they do is to look at how 
much time we sit in traffic in this country. The average driver in this 
country sits in traffic 42 hours a year. In cities such as Washington, 
DC, the numbers are more like 80 hours a year. We are not moving. We 
are just sitting there wasting time, wasting fuel, and polluting the 
skies. We don't have to do that. Instead of doing something that is 
intellectually honest, what we are doing is really, I think, shameful. 
I think it is shameful.
  Initially, I was just confused by what the House wants to do with the 
Federal Reserve by moving $50 to $60 billion out of there. Now that I 
understand what they are doing, it is even more shameful. We can do 
better than this, and the American people deserve better than that.
  Our friends at the McKinsey Global Institute spent some time last 
year trying to figure out if we were actually investing robustly in our 
roads, highways, and bridges in this country. They looked at how it 
would affect our GDP and if it would have any effect on putting people 
to work. If we are willing to make robust investments for the next 10 
years instead of, frankly, not much at all in terms of investments, 
here is what they said: We would grow GDP by about 1.5 percent per year 
for the next 10 years. So far this year it has been somewhere between 2 
and 2.5 percent. We could increase it by another 1.5 percent if we make 
these kinds of honest investments. We are not going to come close to 
making robust investments.
  The McKinsey Global Institute also told us that in terms of new 
employment, if we were actually to invest robustly in roads, highways, 
and bridges in this country, we would put 1.8 million people to work 
building roads, highways, bridges, and transit systems. But we are not 
going to do that.
  We are not even close to what the McKinsey Global Institute was 
calling for in robust investments that would actually grow our GDP by 
1.5 percent each year and increase employment by 1.8 million people. In 
fact, what we are passing here isn't even close to the 4 cents a year 
for 4 years and indexing going forward. That produces $220 billion over 
the next 10 years.
  What we are doing is barely keeping Federal funding at $50 billion, 
and the way we are doing most of that is by sleight of hand and by 
using money that has nothing to do with roads, highways, and bridges 
and nothing to do with businesses and people that use those 
transportation modes to pay for them--nothing. And now we are about to 
name conferees and go to conference on that kind of deal? The American 
people aren't stupid. They are not stupid.
  Do you know what a bunch of States around the country--like 12 States 
in the last 2 years--did when they found out they were running out of 
money to build their transportation systems in their States? They 
raised their user fees. They actually raised them.
  Do you know what happened when they had elections last November? Some 
95 percent of the Republicans who voted to raise their user fees were 
reelected, and 90 percent of the Democrats who voted to raise their 
user fees in those 12 States were reelected. They didn't pay a penalty 
for it. They were rewarded for it. The people who voted the other way--
who voted not to raise the user fees--didn't do as well. People aren't 
stupid.
  We are going to have an opportunity here to name conferees and go to 
conference, and I just want to say that this man sitting next to me, 
Jim Inhofe, is a good man. He chairs our Environment and Public Works 
Committee. Our committee reported out a very good 6-year authorization 
bill. He is proud of it. Senator Boxer and I worked on it, and I am 
very proud of what we did. I commend Senator Inhofe for a great bill. 
That is the authorization piece. If we could just stop there, we would 
be fine. Unfortunately, the authorization is only half the game.
  What was the picture of the guy they had on the floor not long ago? 
It was a picture of a cowboy wearing a big hat and lying back sleeping, 
and the caption under the picture says: All hat, no cattle. Well, when 
you have a great authorization bill but no real money to pay for it, 
that is really all hat, no cattle. I don't think there is a better 
example of it that I have seen than the legislation that we are going 
to be conferencing on very soon.
  I wish I could sit here and say it is all going to work out and we 
will do just fine, but that is not the truth. We have let a great 
opportunity pass us by. We are about to let a great opportunity pass us 
by.
  We are worthy of a better opportunity than that, and frankly the 
people of our country deserve a better effort than that.
  With that, I yield the floor to my friend from Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
  Mr. CARPER. I withdraw my objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me say in response that a couple of 
times my good friend from Delaware has observed that the American 
people are not stupid, but the American people also want highways. That 
is one of the big things they want. In fact, we have a document called 
a Constitution that says we are supposed to be doing two things here: 
defending America, and roads and bridges. And I think we both agree on 
the significance of that.


                                Burundi

  I hope I will have time to get into something because our State 
Department of the United States of America is getting involved in 
Burundi, in their election. They had a duly-qualified election. The 
constitutional convention declared that Nkurunziza, who is the 
President, had a legal election, and we ought to stay out of their 
business. If there is time, I would like to elaborate on that, but I 
know I am competing for time.


                                 Gitmo

  On the President's Gitmo message, we have--I will give a little 
chronology on that. On January 22, 2009, Obama signed an Executive 
order to close Gitmo within the year.
  On February 3 of that same year, 2009, I introduced a bill to 
permanently prevent Gitmo detainees from being relocated anywhere in 
the United States.

[[Page 18016]]

At that time they were ready to talk about relocating them to parts of 
my State of Oklahoma, in the Fort Sill area.
  In May 2009 I authored bipartisan legislation with Senator Danny 
Inouye to block funding to close Gitmo and to move the detainees 
anywhere on U.S. soil. That passed 90 to 6.
  Every year since, Congress has blocked the attempts by this President 
and his administration to close Gitmo or move terrorist detainees into 
the United States.
  Every year, Congress has passed laws that continue to limit the 
transfer of these detainees, including in the conference report for the 
fiscal year 2016 NDAA bill. That is what we are talking about right 
now. It prohibits the transferring of Gitmo detainees to the United 
States through December 31, 2016. That also tightens the restrictions 
on the detainees being transferred to other countries.
  The fiscal year NDAA also included language preventing closure of 
Gitmo through December 31, 2016. However, this has not prevented 
President Obama from trying to empty Gitmo and releasing these 
terrorist detainees to any country he can pay to take them back and now 
threatening an Executive order to bring them to the United States--to 
the States of Colorado, South Carolina, and Kansas--against the will of 
the Senators from those States, the House Members from those States, 
and the American people.
  This is not the first time the President has gone against the will of 
the American people and violated our laws. The President violated the 
law last June when he transferred the Taliban Five from Gitmo in 
exchange for Sergeant Bergdahl, and my colleagues will remember that 
issue. He failed to notify Congress. The laws we passed said they had 
to notify Congress 30 days in advance of any transfer of terrorists to 
any facility. His failure to adhere to the law he signed placed our 
Nation's security at great risk.
  Let me just mention--I carry this with me. If people realize whom he 
turned loose, the Taliban Five--this is a statement that was made by 
the Taliban commander. His name is Mullah Khan. He was talking about 
Mohammad Fazl. Keep in mind he was arguably the most dangerous person--
terrorist--who was being held in Gitmo. He said:

       His return is like pouring 10,000 Taliban fighters into the 
     battle on the side of jihad. Now the Taliban have the right 
     lion to lead them in the final moment before victory in 
     Afghanistan.

  These are the kinds of people he is turning loose.
  According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 29 
percent of the detainees transferred out of Gitmo have either been 
confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight and killing Americans. 
That is how serious this is.
  Gitmo is outside the sovereign territory of the United States, which 
means detainees held there do not have constitutional rights. But if we 
put them back in the United States, it is very likely they would have 
those rights.
  I have a quote from former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who 
said:

       The question of what constitutional rights may apply to 
     aliens in government custody is unsettled, but it is clear 
     from existing jurisprudence that physical presence in the 
     United States would be a significant, if not a decisive, 
     factor.

  I am also concerned about the security of the people here who would 
have to guard these terrorists.
  Back when a Thomson, IL, prison was discussed--that was in 2009--
Representative Mark Kirk--at that time he was in the House; that was 
before he was in the Senate--called the move ``an unnecessary risk,'' 
and other Illinois Members were concerned that the transfer of 
prisoners--some for trial and some for indefinite detention--could make 
the State a target for terrorists. Mark Kirk was then and is now 
correct that prisons holding these detainees will become magnets, and 
there is the very real possibility that these detainees would recruit 
more terrorists.
  We have to keep in mind that a terrorist is not a criminal. A 
terrorist is someone who trains other people to be terrorists, and that 
is what we would be seeing happening in our courts.
  FBI Director Robert Mueller said there is the very real possibility 
that Gitmo detainees will recruit more terrorists from among the 
Federal inmate population and continue Al Qaeda operations from outside 
the country.
  I have been to Gitmo several times, as has the occupier of the chair. 
It is a state-of-the-art facility that provides humane treatment for 
all detainees. When I was there, the biggest problem they had with the 
detainees was that they were overweight. They are all obese because 
they are eating so well. It is fully in compliance with the Geneva 
Convention and provides treatment and oversight that exceed any maximum 
security prison in the world, as tested by human rights organizations 
such as the Red Cross, Attorney General Holder, and an independent 
commission led by Admiral Walsh. It is a secure location away from 
population centers, and it has a $12 million expeditionary legal 
complex. That is a courtroom. We can't use our courtrooms because of 
the confidentiality of information that is extracted from these 
individuals and used in the courtroom, so they use the expeditionary 
legal complex.
  The last thing I would say is that it is clear that--and this comes 
from former CIA Director Leon Panetta. He was talking about the fact 
that our President--talking about the way they were able to get the bad 
guy, and what they have refused to understand is the information they 
extracted at Gitmo was used to actually capture Osama bin Laden.
  Anyway, we don't want that to happen, we can't afford to let that 
happen, and we are going to do everything we can to keep the President 
from making that happen. This has become an obsession of his, and we 
are not going to let that happen.


                                Burundi

  Lastly, I do want to mention that on this whole issue in Burundi 
right now, we have to understand in this country that there are other 
nations that have their own systems of government. They are the ones 
that have their elections. In this case, I happened to be there in 
Burundi when the court declared that the incumbent President, 
Nkurunziza, was qualified to run again, even though they have a term 
limit. The first term was not a complete term, so that didn't count, 
according to the court. For us to come in afterward and say ``Well, we 
think the court was wrong, we don't think he is qualified to run, and 
we are going to withhold things from that country'' is something we 
should not be doing in this country.
  I can assure my colleagues that the six Members who went with me over 
there were all on the scene and agreed that Nkurunziza should be 
legitimately elected, and we should stay out of their business.
  With that, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________