[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5512-5514]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE REPUBLICAN-LED SENATE

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, last Thursday marked the 100th day of 
the new Republican-led Senate. While it is still very early, and there 
is still much to be done, we can report there has been bipartisan 
progress in a number of important areas. So I am optimistic. I am 
optimistic that the momentum we have seen over the last several months 
is going to translate into further successes on behalf of Americans.
  It is interesting to read from last Thursday's USA TODAY: The first 
100 days of Republican Congress. The headline is: ``Lawmakers try to 
prove it's possible to be productive.'' So people are noticing the fact 
that we are keeping our campaign promises.
  During the last campaign season we told people all across the country 
that if they just gave us the opportunity to govern, we would do it in 
a bipartisan way. In November, the American people did send an 
unmistakable message to Washington. Voters across the country said they 
were tired of gridlock and tired of a lack of action. They said it was 
time for a new majority--a Republican majority--a majority to get the 
Senate working again and to get America on a better course.
  Republicans have responded, and we are working hard to make the 
Senate accountable again to the people who sent us here. And you don't 
have to take my word for it. Just the other day, the Bipartisan Policy 
Center came out with its healthy Congress index. This is a group of 
former Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress. They talked about 
how the new Senate has been showing signs of life. The total number of 
days worked, they report, is up from that of previous years--43 days in 
the first 100 calendar days of this Senate versus 33 days at the same 
point last Congress, and 33 days in the Congress before that.
  Also, the number of bills reported out of committee is way up. In the 
first 100 days we had 15 bills reported out of committees in the Senate 
compared to just 8 in the first 100 days of the previous two 
Congresses. Imagine that, our committees are working, and we are 
pushing out bipartisan bills, such as the Iran congressional review 
bill that passed unanimously in the Foreign Relations Committee.
  The number of amendments voted on is larger than it has been in 
previous Congresses. In the first 100 days of this Congress, we voted 
on more than 100 amendments. These are amendments by both Republicans 
and Democrats. For all of last year there were only 15 up-and-down 
votes on amendments--just 15 for the entire year. This year we topped 
that number of amendment votes by January 22.
  That is just one more way the Senate is working again. In the first 
100 days we passed a dozen bipartisan bills. We passed the bipartisan 
Keystone XL Pipeline jobs bill. We passed a bill to make much-needed 
reforms to the Medicare program and to reauthorize the Children's 
Health Insurance Program. We passed the Clay Hunt Veterans Suicide 
Prevention Act. We reached an agreement to help victims of modern 
slavery who are abused and exploited by human traffickers. These 
important bills are just part of our commitment to work together to 
solve problems for the American people.
  On top of all that, we passed a budget that actually balances over 
the next 10 years. Even former Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle 
recently said that ``there's been more open debate and consideration of 
issues'' under Senator McConnell's leadership. Well, that is exactly 
right. The Senate is working again, and we are just getting started.
  I am hopeful we can continue to work together to find solutions for 
more issues that matter to the American people. As chairman of the 
Indian Affairs Committee, I can say that we have made real progress on 
bills to improve the lives of people across Indian Country. We have 
passed bills to improve irrigation projects, to help protect children 
in foster care, and to increase self-governance by Indian tribes. It 
has been a positive agenda, and I am grateful for the hard work and 
dedication of all the committee members.
  Along with a group of six Democrats and six Republicans who are 
working as cosponsors, I introduced a bill to speed up exports of 
American liquefied natural gas. We have bipartisan agreement on the 
need to streamline the permitting process for the sale of this clean 
American energy.
  This week we also made great progress on a bipartisan bill on the 
waters of the United States. I am optimistic we can reach an agreement 
with Senators on the other side of the aisle to get that issue behind 
us.
  The American people want an honest debate on important issues such as 
these. The American people want their representatives in the Senate to 
be able to offer amendments. The American people want to see their 
Senators take a stand and cast a vote up or down. That is how the 
Senate should work. That is how the Senate has been working for the 
first 100 days under Republican leadership.
  I am pleased with how productive the Senate has been over the first 
100 days. Of course we want to do more, and we will have the chance 
shortly. I look forward to more votes, more debate, and more 
consideration of ideas from both sides of the aisle. This is the 
commitment Republicans made to the American people, and we are keeping 
that commitment.
  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. CORNYN. 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. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am happy to stand here today knowing 
that the Senate has had a pretty good week of getting its work done--or 
I should say the people's work done--and overwhelmingly passing 
important legislation that will actually help, first of all, victims of 
human trafficking, but generally speaking, help make the lives of our 
constituents, the American people, just a little bit better. I am 
talking about the antitrafficking legislation in particular--something 
I am particularly excited about--the unanimous, 99-to-0 vote yesterday. 
We passed this piece of legislation after a hard-fought few weeks of 
debate. The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act was a bill we all 
agree was worth fighting for. Why? Is this important to the rich and 
powerful, the people who have a lot of influence here in Washington and 
around the country? No. We thought it was worth fighting for because it 
would help the people who, frankly, need a voice. They need somebody to 
speak up for them because they can't speak for themselves. This 
antitrafficking bill, the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, 
protects the most vulnerable people in our country.
  I thank the majority leader for his tireless help and commitment to 
making sure we got this job done to fight this monstrous crime and 
punish those who seek to hold our children in what has been 
appropriately called nothing less than modern-day slavery.
  As the majority leader said yesterday, today is a new day. Under his 
leadership, the Senate is now in a new era of bipartisanship and 
functioning. If there is one thing I heard last year as I was 
campaigning for reelection in Texas or traveling around the country--I 
am sure the Presiding Officer had the same experience--it is that 
people would tell me how frustrated they were with Washington and the 
fact that no one seemed to be working together to try to solve the 
problems that were making their lives more difficult. ``Dysfunction'' 
was the word most commonly used.
  But now, after this first 100 days of a new Congress, I think we are 
demonstrating that we are capable of functioning and working together 
in the best interest of the American people. Does that mean we are 
sacrificing our principles? People are Republicans or

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Democrats for good reason: They have a different point of view. But 
what is inexcusable is for Republicans and Democrats to refuse to work 
together and get nothing done.
  We have a colleague, a very conservative colleague who years ago told 
me, while working with a very liberal colleague--I asked him: How is it 
that somebody who really represents the book ends in terms of 
ideology--Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative--how 
is it that you actually are able to get things done?
  He said to me: Well, it is easy. It is the 80-20 rule. We take the 80 
percent we can agree on and we leave the 20 percent we can't agree on 
for another day and another fight.
  As we are celebrating, in a sense, a new era of bipartisanship and 
functioning here in the Senate, it is clear we can't rest on our 
laurels. We still have a lot of work to do, and I would like to spend a 
couple minutes talking about that.
  Our upcoming agenda will include some very important and weighty 
matters, including the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which will 
give Congress the ability and time to scrutinize any agreement reached 
between the Obama administration and the P5+1 nations, while also 
prohibiting the President from lifting sanctions on Iran during this 
period of review.
  This commonsense bill was unanimously reported out last week by the 
Foreign Relations Committee. I think that is a little bit of a surprise 
to many given the fact that the President initially said that if 
Congress were to pass this sort of legislation giving the American 
people a voice in this nuclear agreement, he would veto it. Well, when 
this came roaring out of the Foreign Relations Committee with unanimous 
support and when it became clear that enough Democrats were going to 
join together with Republicans to pass this legislation and prevent a 
veto by having enough votes to override a veto, then the President very 
commonsensically said: Well, I think I will sign it. I will agree to go 
along with that.
  So the President finally agreed with Republicans and Democrats in the 
Senate that congressional oversight was warranted and admitted last 
week that he would not stand in the way of this legislation.
  We are here not to guard our own prerogatives or privileges as 
individual Senators. That means essentially nothing. What we are here 
for is to stand in the shoes of our constituents--the 26.9 million 
people whom I represent in Texas, the people of Arkansas whom the 
Presiding Officer represents--and it is absolutely critical that we, as 
the representatives of the American people, have the opportunity to 
review this Iran deal and to consider its implications, to debate it, 
and to make that entirely transparent to the American people because 
this is about not just the national security of the nation of Israel, 
this is about our national security as well as that of our other 
allies.
  We will spend much of the next few days and perhaps through next week 
discussing this bill, so I won't belabor my thoughts on that at this 
time, but I did want to express a few concerns on the current state of 
the proposed framework with Iran.
  On April 2, President Obama announced not a deal with Iran but a 
``historic understanding with Iran.''
  Well, people naturally asked: What does that understanding look like? 
What does it consist of? Where can I get a copy of it so I can read it?
  To our surprise, there wasn't a deal. Nothing was written. It was 
somehow a historic understanding that--even the parties who negotiated 
it disagreed about the details. So it should come as no surprise that 
the President and the P5+1 countries have not been able to secure an 
actual deal with Iran, which is our biggest threat and most dangerous 
adversary in the Middle East. After all, let's think about whom we are 
talking to and with--the nation of Iran. This is the No. 1 state 
sponsor of international terrorism, a country that has repeatedly lied 
to and deceived inspectors in the past as a matter of standard 
operating procedure. As Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel reminded us 
just last month, for more than 30 years Iran has been hostile to 
America and her allies. In fact, Iran first killed Americans back in 
the early 1980s and has subsequently killed Americans mainly through 
proxies since that time until the present time. This is the same regime 
that has continued to target the United States since 1979. It is the 
same regime that has been on the State Department's terrorism blacklist 
since 1984 following an Iran-backed terrorist attack that resulted in 
the deaths of hundreds of American servicemen, including many from my 
State. Given this track record, does anybody really wonder what Iran 
would do with a nuclear weapon?
  As these important negotiations continue for the next months, there 
remain a lot of question marks about Iran's true intentions and about 
whether the deal--once it is done--the Obama administration is 
finalizing will essentially cement Iran's status as a nuclear threshold 
nation.
  I remember Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking to a joint meeting of 
the Congress. He said the framework he has seen doesn't prevent Iran 
from gaining a nuclear weapon. What he said is that essentially the 
framework paves the way or paves the path to a nuclear weapon, which, 
of course, would represent a tremendous change in American policy.
  Our policy has been--the administration's policy has been, as stated, 
no nukes for Iran, none. But at least according to the framework that 
has been leaked, there appears to be more of the nature of a pathway 
toward a nuclear weapon as opposed to a prohibition. I look forward to 
continuing the discussion in the coming days, but Iran is only one 
issue we will be turning to as the Senate continues to work on 
bipartisan legislation to get work done for the American people.
  We will be working on the very important issue of trade. Trade is 
important to my State, and it is important to the United States. 
Anytime we can open new markets to the things we grow in our 
agricultural sector or the livestock we raise--the beef, pork, poultry 
sector--anytime we can create and open new markets to the things we 
manufacture and we make in the United States, it strikes me it is a 
good thing, because while we occupy only 5 percent of the world's 
territory, we constitute 20 percent of the purchasing power in the 
world. That means 95 percent of the population--80 percent of the 
purchasing power in the world--lies beyond our shores. It just makes 
sense to me that we would want to open our markets, our goods that we 
make and grow and raise to markets overseas; in this case, primarily to 
Asia. But once we take up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, once it is 
negotiated, then at some future point we will turn to Europe and the 
so-called TTIP negotiation.
  Last night, I am glad to report that the Finance Committee reported 
out the trade promotion authority piece of this legislation. This is 
something that has been a little bit misunderstood and, frankly, it is 
a little confusing. People have asked, Why in the world would you want 
to give the President authority to negotiate this Trans-Pacific 
Partnership negotiation? The simple answer is this trade promotion 
authority is not just for President Obama and his administration--he is 
only going to be there for the next 20 months. This will last for 6 
years and go into the next Presidential administration.
  The fact is, you can't negotiate something as complex as a trade deal 
like the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 535 negotiators; in other 
words, all the Members of the Senate and all the Members of the House. 
But what this does provide is that once a deal is reached, it has to be 
laid before the Congress and it has to be laid before the American 
people so they can read it and understand it.
  After about 6 months, then there will be a debate in the Senate, and 
we will have an up-or-down vote. If we do not think it serves the 
interests of the United States, of our citizens and of our country, we 
can vote it down. But conversely, if we think this does improve trade 
and the economic prospects, jobs and wages for the American

[[Page 5514]]

people, then we can vote to approve it. This bill will open American 
goods and services to global markets, which is good for our economy, 
good for jobs, and good for better wages, something that has been under 
a lot of negative pressure over the last few years.
  To sum up this week, we passed legislation that will help thousands 
of victims of modern-day slavery--typically, a girl between the ages of 
12 and 14--who are routinely sex trafficked in our own backyards. This 
will provide real resources. It will not only help rescue them but 
begin to help them heal and to begin the path to restoration.
  I think this should be a proud accomplishment for the Senate. But the 
bottom line is, we still have a lot of work to do, and I look forward 
to more accomplishments with my colleagues and for the new spirit of 
bipartisanship to continue as we tackle real problems for the American 
people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.

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