[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3678-3685]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  AMERICA'S SMALL BUSINESS TAX RELIEF ACT OF 2015--MOTION TO PROCEED--
                               Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
up to 20 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for my 132nd ``Time to Wake 
Up'' speech. We are now back from recess, and while we were away, one 
little thing and three really big things happened. The little thing has 
to do with the so-called war on coal which we have heard so much 
nonsense about in this Chamber. There was this article, which I am 
showing on this chart, saying: ``Natural gas has been waging a war on 
coal for more than a decade, and this is the year it plants the flag.''
  Natural gas has been waging a war on coal. Not Obama. Not liberals. 
Natural gas.
  The article predicts a resulting ``wave'' of coal plant retirements. 
Who wrote this? Some green, lefty publication? Actually, it was the 
Wall Street Journal news department.
  So as coal companies go bankrupt left and right, there is the coal 
story. Natural gas has been waging war on coal for more than a decade. 
Spinning this against the President has been easy politics, but false, 
and that false political strategy has left coal country with what? 
Nothing. A carbon fee could produce revenues that could power wealth 
into coal country, but, no, what they got instead was someone to 
blame--someone to blame wrongly. Great job.
  Now to the three big things that happened during our recess. First, a 
group of very distinguished scientists, led by legendary climate 
scientist Dr. James Hansen, warned us that this climate change thing is 
likely to be a lot worse than we thought. Their sweeping synthesis, 
which underwent an involved and public peer-review process, suggests 
the possibility of greater sea level rise in this century than 
forecast. It suggests, worse, even epic storms, and it posits ``losing 
functionality of all coastal cities.'' How about that for a phrase? 
They go on to conclude, obviously, that ``the economic and social cost 
of losing functionality of all coastal cities is practically 
incalculable.''
  That was one.
  Second is the Great Barrier Reef, a wonder of the world, hit by the 
worst coral bleaching ever measured. For those of my colleagues who 
don't know, uplanders who may not understand what coral bleaching is, 
it is like cardiac arrest for coral. You are not necessarily dead yet, 
but there is a very good chance you will be, and for sure you are in 
serious trouble and you will need time to recover. That is what is 
happening in the Great Barrier Reef.
  The third thing is a new study out of UMass and Penn State which 
found that the expected loss of Antarctic ice ``nearly doubles'' prior 
estimates of sea level rise.
  I am from an ocean State. I am from Rhode Island, the Ocean State. 
This is consequential. How consequential? Here is what one of the 
authors of the study said: ``You're remapping the way the planet looks 
from space with those numbers, not just subtle changes about which 
neighborhoods are going to be susceptible to storm surge,'' but 
remapping the way the planet looks from space. Of course, 
CO2 levels continue to exceed 400 parts per million against 
a human history where they were always between 170 and 300 until the 
industrial era drove it up.
  So that is not great news, but here is what is sickening about it. We 
don't seem to care here. It has all been in the news. Senators read the 
news. It is not like we are being deprived of information. We just as 
an institution do not care. That is a defect. That makes us a defective 
institution, not to be able to receive and process information like 
this. This is institutional failure, and we don't even care about that 
because one might say: You know, I don't really care myself about all 
of this damage, but as a Member of this body, I get that the U.S. 
Senate ought to care institutionally. It is like secondary caring. I 
will do my duty. Even if I personally don't care about oceans or reefs 
or coasts or storms, I am in. I am in, even though it is not my thing, 
because I know it is important. But we don't even do that. So we really 
don't care.
  Why? Why would we be so blind? We are not all terrible people. Some 
of us actually spend time outdoors and profess to care about nature. So 
why does the Senate, as a body collectively, not give a hoot? It is a 
deadly combination of politics and money. That is what investigation 
and history will show, and the investigations are underway. The history 
will not be pretty.
  We are surrounded by money. Senators exist in a world of money the 
way fish exist in a world of water. We are so accustomed to it, we 
barely even notice it. Hundreds of millions of dollars every year in 
lobbying money surround us. Hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign 
money every election have to be raised. Hundreds of millions in PAC 
money pours in and exerts its influence, and we don't even know how 
much dark money there is flowing around through loopholes the size of 
the Holland Tunnel. Just one--one--dark money group is spending $750 
million in the 2016 elections. It is a disgrace, but it has an effect.
  The interests that spend hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying us 
want things. The interests who give hundreds of millions of dollars in 
campaign money want things. The PACs and the super PACs pointing $750 
million in political artillery at us, they want things. Some want 
ideological things, but most want money. More exactly, they want things 
we can do that can be turned into money: licenses, tax breaks, trade 
advantages, regulations, relief from regulations. You name it, they 
want it because they can turn it into money.
  All of that has a desensitizing effect on our values here. If 
something can't be monetized, we get trained not to care about it. 
Values that aren't monetized in the marketplace start to seem weird. 
Who cares about a reef? What is that weird Senator doing talking about 
a reef? What a silly thing to talk about in our serious world.
  Now, someone's favorable fat cat tax rate, that is important. Jerking 
around a perfectly qualified Supreme Court nominee, that is definitely 
important, but the greatest crisis facing the natural world as we know 
it, no. And we go along. We go along with that warped value system. It 
is a lie. It is a moral lie so big it envelopes us, and we acclimate to 
it. All that money around us slowly anesthetizes our moral and natural 
senses, and that is how this place becomes Mammon Hall.
  It is actually even worse than that. It is not just that if you can't 
cash it in, it doesn't matter around here. It is that big, greedy 
special interests come here to plunder, and we let them. We let them, 
and we even help them because we become dependent on their money.
  Well, I have a proposition. Years ago, one of the Koch brothers, 
America's biggest polluters, ran for Vice President as a Libertarian 
Party candidate. When he ran, he learned something. He learned the 
perverse math of third parties in a two-party system. The perverse math 
of third parties in a two-party system is that you only hurt the ones 
you love. You hurt the party you are closest to by your third party 
taking votes away from the party closest to your politics. Well, the 
Kochs may be a lot of things, but they aren't stupid, and I think they 
learned. They learned that a creepy far-right third party that could be 
put in tow to big polluters was not the right method to achieve their 
purposes.
  There was a smarter method. Invade the Republican Party, that Grand 
Old Party of Theodore Roosevelt, capture it, turn it into the far-right 
party of their dreams. That was the smart play. Money and secrecy could 
make it happen, and they are pretty close to having done it. The 
Republican Party in Congress is as dependent on fossil fuel and 
polluter money now as a deep sea diver is on his air hose. Cut the 
airhose

[[Page 3679]]

or pinch the flow, and we have a diver in real distress. When you 
control a deep sea diver's airhose, he becomes a pretty obedient diver. 
It is a form of the Golden Rule: He who wields the gold makes the 
rules.
  The political press, by the way, does little to help. It is a game to 
them. Who will say something appalling we can chatter about on the talk 
shows? Who is up? Who is down? Who said what about whom? It is akin to 
a soccer team of 7-year-olds. Most everybody runs to the ball or 
whatever the shiny object of the moment is, and in the midst of them 
are outfits that masquerade as the political press, but they are really 
polluter PR fronts in disguise. They, too, are in tow to the fossil 
fuel industry. Money and secrecy have their way.
  So here we are in the Senate, in the face of this news that came to 
us over the recess, ineffective, defective, idly paying no attention to 
what is really important as we chase political trifles around, making a 
mockery of our great American democratic experiment.
  Well, folks, people are going to notice. This climate mess we have 
created is only going in one direction. When everybody has noticed, 
when it is way past denying, elected officials who refused to even look 
at the problem are going to look pretty foolish, and they are going to 
have to explain.
  Well, you see, I thought there was this big hoax.
  Really.
  Yes, I thought NASA's scientists and NOAA's scientists were all in on 
it, along with the U.S. Navy and every National Lab we fund.
  Hum. That is a big hoax.
  Oh, did I forget to mention my home State university must have been 
in on the hoax too? They were all studying climate change effects 
actually happening in my home State, but I knew better.
  Great.
  And every major legitimate American scientific society and most of my 
home State corporate leaders--I figured they were all wrong.
  Oh, OK, and where did you get that idea?
  Oh, from a bunch of guys with financial ties to the polluters.
  Come on--seriously? Didn't you think that was a pretty obvious 
conflict of interest?
  Wow, is that something I should have thought of? But listen. Now I 
want you to reelect me because I am such a good, prudent, and 
responsible decisionmaker.
  Folks, good luck with that. If you think the Republican Party is in 
trouble now, wait until the day of reckoning comes on climate change. 
Explain the money. Explain the money. You don't think people are going 
to figure out how it works? Explain the talk show science you believe 
instead of the peer-reviewed stuff. Explain the quality of your due 
diligence into the science. Good luck with that.
  Explain why you thought NASA, which is driving a rover around on the 
surface of Mars that they flew there and safely landed--that is 
probably the greatest scientific and mechanical achievement of our 
time. They did that, but you say they were part of a hoax on climate 
change. Really?
  By the way, I think people here actually owe NASA an apology for 
saying such nonsense about them, but that is for another day.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                               ObamaCare

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, a couple of weeks ago was the sixth 
anniversary of President Obama's unpopular health care law. Every year 
at this time, that birthday is not one people actually want to 
celebrate. When we take a look at the reasons Americans aren't 
celebrating ObamaCare's sixth birthday, it is pretty obvious. Let's 
read them: unsecured data through the Web site, fewer provider choices, 
over $1 trillion in new taxes on American families, 2 million jobs' 
worth of hours lost, and skyrocketing premiums and deductibles. It is 
no surprise that the health care law continues to be very unpopular.
  Americans know that under the health care law they have less freedom 
to keep their doctor, to keep the insurance that was right for them and 
their families, because the President says he gets to decide what 
somebody needs for themselves and their families--not the families 
getting to decide for themselves.
  We know that--again, it came out during the break--people's personal 
data is not secure at healthcare.gov, as they thought it was. We know 
insurance companies are continuing to give patients fewer choices by 
limiting the networks of doctors that people can see. The health care 
law has added over $1 trillion in new taxes onto hardworking American 
families. Premiums and deductibles are up, and according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, ObamaCare is cutting the hours Americans 
can work by about 2 million jobs over the next decade. So it seems that 
every day there is more news coming out on how the health care law is 
unaffordable, unpopular, and unworkable.
  Last week there was a new study that explains one of the reasons why 
the President's health care law is collapsing. There was a study that 
came out from Blue Cross Blue Shield. It compared people buying new 
health insurance coverage in the ObamaCare exchanges to people who 
already had health insurance through their jobs. The study found that 
the new ObamaCare customers went to the doctor 26 percent more often 
than other people did, that they were admitted to the hospital almost 
twice as often, that ObamaCare customers have higher costs, and that 
the average medical spending is about $1,200 a year higher for people 
on ObamaCare than people who get their insurance through work. So why 
is it that hospital admissions are up so much for people who are on 
ObamaCare, and why is it that doctors' visits are up 26 percent? 
Because the new ObamaCare enrollees are sicker and costlier. So 
insurance companies of course have to raise their premiums. People are 
sicker who are signing up. They go to the doctor more. The insurance 
company turns around, and it raises premiums on everyone else. That is 
why so many people are opposed to the health care law--because the 
impact it has had on them personally.
  When insurance companies have to raise their rates on ObamaCare 
plans, a lot of money is paid by taxpayers because it is the taxpayers 
who are paying for the subsidies for all the folks who have signed up 
for ObamaCare. What we know is that taxpayers are subsidizing the 
premiums of 83 percent of the people who buy ObamaCare insurance. When 
the premiums go up, taxes have to be made up to pay for it.
  Well, when companies can't get enough extra money, they just stop 
offering policies. Under ObamaCare that may happen. Then more people 
will lose their insurance coverage. Maybe some companies will just go 
out of business. We are familiar with that process because we have seen 
it. We have seen that under the ObamaCare health care law, a majority 
of the ObamaCare health insurance co-ops have actually gone bankrupt. 
The health care law created 23 co-ops, and 12 have already gone out of 
business.
  Premiums were already out of control, and it is getting worse. The 
average premium for what is called the benchmark silver plan in the 
ObamaCare exchange is more than 7 percent higher this year than last 
year. For people who can only afford the cheaper bronze plan, premiums 
are up 13 percent compared to last year. Over the next couple of 
months, insurance companies are going to start setting their rates for 
2017. They are going to take into account what has happened in the 
previous year. So this new study by Blue Cross Blue Shield is just 
laying the groundwork for even more price increases to come next year. 
I think this is one of the things that explains why so many people 
dislike ObamaCare.
  A new poll came out that found that 47 percent of Americans have an 
unfavorable view of the health care law. The Kaiser Family Foundation 
report shows Americans' opinion of ObamaCare is tilting negative--47 
percent marked it unpopular in March of 2016. A year ago this poll said 
that 42 percent of the people had an unfavorable view. There we were a 
year ago.

[[Page 3680]]

Here we are now. The number keeps climbing. Now only 41 percent of the 
people have a favorable view of the health care law. It wasn't supposed 
to be this way.
  Mr. President, 6 years ago Democrats in Washington were very 
confident that the law would be extremely popular today. As a matter of 
fact, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York went on ``Meet the Press'' back 
in 2010 and said: ``It is going to become more popular.'' He said: ``I 
predict that by November those who voted for the health care law will 
find it an asset.''
  Well, we all remember what happened in the 2010 elections. We know 
that Democrats who voted for the health care law did not find it an 
asset. Democrats lost six seats in the Senate that year, and they lost 
control of the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi was out as 
Speaker of the House, and the Republicans took the majority.
  Then in 2013, Senator Harry Reid was making this same prediction 
about how popular the health care law was going to be. He told the 
newspaper The Hill in Washington that ObamaCare would be ``a net 
positive'' for Democrats in 2014. Senator Reid forced the health care 
law through Congress when he was the majority leader, and I think that 
is a big part of why he is now the minority leader. He lost the 
majority in the Senate. Why? I think in big part because of the health 
care law and the fact that it ignored the needs of the American people.
  The longer people have to live with this offensive and expensive law, 
the less popular it gets.
  It was never popular to begin with, but today, even more than before, 
the opinion is, as this poster says, ``tilting negative.''
  The same poll also found something I found amazing. I have practiced 
medicine for 25 years, and I have been involved here in the Senate for 
a number of years. I have never seen anything like this. This new poll 
found that 28 percent of Americans say that this health care law has 
directly hurt them and their families.
  The President says: Defend and be proud of this law.
  How can you defend and be proud of something that 28 percent of the 
American public tells you has hurt them and their family personally? 
Only 18 percent in the poll said the law had directly helped them. It 
is incredible and it is disturbing. ObamaCare is hurting far more 
people than it is helping.
  Costs are going up much faster than Democrats promised, as are copays 
and deductibles. It is no wonder the law is unpopular. We know the 
health care law makes it more expensive for taxpayers--but how much 
more expensive?
  The Congressional Budget Office came out with a report last week. It 
said that over the next 10 years the health care law is going to cost 
$136 billion more than they thought it would cost just a year ago. When 
they compared what they thought it was going to cost a year ago and 
what they think it is going to cost now, it is $136 billion more. That 
is despite there being fewer people in the insurance exchanges than 
they expected. They predicted there would be 21 million people buying 
ObamaCare health insurance this year. In fact, they say it is going to 
be no more than 12 million.
  People are doing everything they can to avoid these insurance 
policies--especially young, healthy people. So why is it going to cost 
an extra $136 billion? One of the reasons is higher premiums, sicker 
patients, and because the law has dumped so many more people into 
Medicaid. About 23 percent of the people in the country under the age 
of 65 are now on Medicaid. That is what the Congressional Budget Office 
says--one out of every four.
  Is that a success--putting all these additional people on Medicaid? 
The President says it is.
  As a doctor who has practiced medicine and taken care of patients for 
over 25 years, putting additional people on Medicaid is not a success. 
It is not what people wanted, and it is not what President Obama 
promised. Americans deserve better. They deserve better than to be 
shoved into this second-tier health care system. Plus, in terms of 
government health care programs and wasting money, a recent study found 
that for every dollar spent on Medicaid, people only get about 20 to 40 
cents on every dollar spent. How is that for an inefficient government 
system? Almost every day we get more information on the damage the 
health care law is doing to Americans across the country.
  Republicans have offered solutions that would actually keep the 
promises the Democrats made for ObamaCare, such as letting people keep 
their doctors and keep their insurance, giving more people options for 
how they can reduce their costs of medical care. Americans have now 
been forced to try this ObamaCare experiment--what the Democrats 
wanted--and forced to do it for the last 6 years. ObamaCare isn't 
getting any better. It is just getting older, and it is still making 
things worse for American families. That is why it is so unpopular.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. 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. Mr. President, today marks my 38th edition of ``Waste of 
the Week.'' With our Nation $19 trillion in debt, I am going to 
continue coming to the Senate floor every week the Senate is in session 
to highlight verified and documented examples of waste, fraud, and 
abuse.
  I turn to reports from nonpartisan organizations such as the 
Government Accountability Office which indicate that, thankfully, 
somebody is looking into how we run this government, coming up with 
examples of how we can run it better. They let the American people know 
that we are not wisely and carefully spending their taxpayer dollars, 
and, hopefully, we can take remedial action.
  Last year, I detailed an investigation by the nonpartisan Government 
Accountability Office, the GAO, which discovered that fraudulent 
applications are being accepted by healthcare.gov. That is the 
government's health care Web site for choosing ObamaCare plans on the 
Federal exchange.
  Just last month, I discussed a new report from the GAO that outlined 
how healthcare.gov allowed people to sign up for and receive ObamaCare 
benefits without proper verification. They did a test. They made up 
some names, they filled out the application, they sent it in to 
healthcare.gov, and 11 out of the 12 test applications came back 
approved, with no verification whatsoever. Subsidies started going out 
to these people. Even after they were notified at the Centers for 
Medicare and Medicaid Services, it took months to correct. Some people 
collected these subsidies; these fraudulent subsidies went somewhere. 
These were just made-up names. When we look at 11 out of 12, we have to 
say something is wrong with the system. And if we extrapolated that 
out, there could be a stunning number of fraudulent applications 
certified and subsidies sent to people that don't exist.
  Today I want to discuss even more ObamaCare problems. This one totals 
up to $1.16 billion worth of problems.
  We all know that the Affordable Care Act--which I call the 
Unaffordable Care Act, based on its operations so far--directed States 
to either develop their own State-based exchange to operate ObamaCare 
or to use the Federal exchange accessible at healthcare.gov. States had 
a choice about the action to take. But in order to try to get States to 
set up their own exchanges, the Obama Administration awarded billions 
of dollars in Federal grants to States if they agreed to plan and 
develop a State exchange.
  In 6 of the 14 States that chose to develop their own exchanges and 
receive these Federal grants--Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Oregon, 
New Mexico, and Nevada--the end results were disastrous. In fact, the 
GAO found that these State exchanges were given the green light without 
the systems ever being fully tested. For example, Maryland's exchange 
Web site had more

[[Page 3681]]

than 600 unresolved defects, and Massachusetts had over 1100 unresolved 
defects.
  And yet the exchanges were given the go-ahead by the Obama 
Administration even though these unresolved defects were not realized 
and not addressed.
  In Oregon, a State exchange was set up by political operatives. 
Months after the enrollment period began, the online Oregon exchange 
couldn't enroll a single person, and applicants had to fax in their 
handwritten materials. Talk about a dysfunctional rollout. On this 
Senate floor we have talked about how, in the rush to prove that 
ObamaCare was what this country needed and that the government could 
efficiently and effectively run a health care system and in a rush to 
prove and get the thing up and going according to what the promises 
were, all kinds of mistakes were made.
  Oregon's abysmal failure cost taxpayers $305 million plus an 
additional $41 million that had to be spent to bring Oregon onto the 
Federal exchange. In other words, they failed to set up their State 
exchange and cost taxpayers $305 million. Then they had to spend 
another $41 million to transfer the system over to the Federal 
exchange. All totaled, the Federal government gave these six States 
$1.16 billion, and today none of these six States are independently 
operating their own individual exchanges.
  This was a long time in the making. The nonpartisan GAO and the 
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services raised concerns about these 
State exchanges more than a year before they were scheduled to launch. 
In other words, the warning went out, saying: You are not getting your 
act together. This was a year before the process started. We went 
through that whole year and they still didn't have their act together, 
and it ended up costing taxpayers $1.16 billion.
  It is no secret that the Obama Administration was in a rush to get 
this system up and going, and in the process, who knows how much money 
has been wasted? Who knows the trauma that people have gone through 
trying to sign up for these exchanges?
  I think we all remember the classic debacle that occurred in the 
whole software system and in the whole exchange system. People were 
calling in, they couldn't get anybody to answer the phone, and they 
couldn't get their applications fulfilled. All those promises, you 
know: Your premiums will not go up a penny. Count on that, the 
President said, period. Done deal. Take it to the bank. If you want 
your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Take it to the bank. I guarantee 
you that is what is going to happen. Costs will not go up.
  We have all seen deductibles shoot up. We have all seen premiums 
increase. People weren't able to keep the doctor they wanted. On and on 
it goes, and on and on it continues, and it is at the expense of the 
American taxpayer. Well, maybe it is not surprising. I am here every 
week, and I probably could come up here every day and maybe every hour 
and detail some waste of the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars.
  So today we are going to add more money to our growing list of waste, 
fraud, and abuse, taking us to $158,777,908,417. It just keeps adding 
up, and our colleagues have not taken the necessary action to try to 
tie the deal to these problems.
  Maybe government has become so overwhelmingly bureaucratic and 
dysfunctional that we are not able to run this country anymore in an 
efficient and effective manner. The problem is that we are asking 
people to go to work every day to put in a hard-earned number of hours 
earning pay and sending money to Washington, DC, only to find that it 
is wasted over and over and over. It is a relentless plunge into ever 
more debt because we don't have the money to pay for what we spend. 
Then we have to issue bonds in order to collect money, in order to pay 
for that. All of this falls to the taxpayer, and most of it is going to 
fall to future generations. They are going to have a limit on their 
ability to have the opportunity to make a viable living for themselves 
and for their children, and we wonder why the American people have lost 
faith in Washington's ability to carefully spend their hard-earned 
dollars.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Tribute to J. Thomas McGrady

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, my wife Diana and I wish we could have been 
with Tom McGrady to mark the retirement of a good friend and a great 
legal warrior, Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge J. Thomas McGrady. I am proud 
of Tom and his commitment to the law. Over the years he has compiled a 
tremendous record of success. Simply put, he has made a difference.
  It is probably unusual for a Senator from Wyoming to speak so highly 
of a retiring judge from Florida. Over the years, I have had a chance 
to come to know Tom. I feel honored to call him my friend, and, as 
often has been said, his departure from the bench will leave some large 
shoes to fill.
  Looking back, the script for Tom's life would have made a great 
movie. For starters, he was born on Christmas Eve. He turned out to be 
his parents' favorite Christmas gift. As he grew up and began to 
explore the world around him and develop his talents and abilities, his 
educational pursuits led him to another highlight of his life--high 
school--where he met and went on to marry his high school sweetheart, 
Mary Choquette.
  His interest in the law must have started around then because after 
graduating from the University of Florida with his bachelor's degree, 
he then got his juris doctorate degree there, and then joined a law 
firm and started practicing civil litigation. Before long he opened his 
own law firm.
  He practiced law for 25 years. He was so good that Governor Bush 
appointed him county judge. He was then appointed a circuit judge, 
again by Governor Bush. Whenever Tom ran for reelection, he won--
without opposition. People admired him and greatly appreciated his 
efforts on the bench so much that no one ran against him.
  Perhaps the best indication of his ability as a judge and the 
affection of those with whom he served was his unanimous election by 68 
of his judge colleagues to chief judge 3 times.
  During Tom's service as chief judge, he discovered that with his 
election came a number of problems--Tom probably called them 
challenges--that came packaged together with his new duties. He had to 
deal with cuts to the court budget. He had to deal with a mortgage 
foreclosure crisis. He had to deal with a number of other issues. He 
was also working with a system that relied on old and outdated 
technologies, to name just a few of the matters that required his 
attention as chief judge.
  Probably the biggest problem was the shortage of funds to run the 
courts. Things were so bad that it looked as if drastic measures would 
have to be taken to keep the courts up and running. He came up with an 
option to obtain a loan from the Governor and the legislature. Without 
it, there would have been severe cuts, furloughs, and much more. He 
received a great reception when he shared the details of the problem 
with those who would be most affected--the judges and their staff. They 
appreciated his blunt assessment of how bad things were, as Tom put it, 
``not because of what I had to say, but because I would even come and 
tell them.''
  Tom is a straight shooter, and he knew that the best antidote for the 
impact of bad news was not to sugar coat it but to tell ``the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.'' It also helped that Tom 
had established a reputation over the years for being a gentle man and 
a gentleman, and his honesty, sincerity, good humor, and concern for 
his colleagues and staffers earned him a lot of good will.
  Now that Tom has decided to retire and sit back, he will have more 
time to share with his family and friends. I

[[Page 3682]]

know they will enjoy being with him and having more time to share with 
him, especially his grandchildren, who will love having ``Papa'' around 
a little more often.
  In the end, that is what it is all about--time. Time for faith, 
family, and friends. Time is the most valuable and precious asset we 
have, and how we choose to spend it and the quality of those activities 
that consume most of our time say a lot about the quality of our lives.
  I once heard about a guy who traveled around the world doing research 
on what people were thinking as they grew older. There were a lot of 
interesting thoughts they shared, but one of the most frequent comments 
was about spending more time with family. No one said: I wish I had 
spent more time at work.
  So, as the old film title says so well, Tom has already had a 
wonderful life, with so much more to come. He has made the most of 
every moment and every day. Mary, his sweetheart from his high school 
days, is still by his side, retired from her days as a schoolteacher. 
Now they will spend time enjoying all that life has to offer. Tom and 
Mary both truly earned it.
  Congratulations, Tom McGrady. You have been a great judge, and you 
made a difference in more lives than you will ever know. We can all 
learn a lot from you and the way you have lived your life. God bless 
you and Mary.


                    Remembering Joseph Medicine Crow

  Mr. President, I rise to share the news with the Senate that Joseph 
Medicine Crow, a Crow war chief and American hero, has passed away. If 
you look in today's Washington Post you will see something unusual--
somebody from the West passing away and getting a major mention in the 
paper. Joe Medicine Crow did that, and he earned it in his 102 years. I 
know it meant a lot to the students of Western and American history to 
see the attention he has received, as numerous publications have 
written about him and his life and his countless contributions to the 
Crow people and to our Nation.
  If you have a chance to read the tributes to Joe Medicine Crow--and I 
hope you do--you will fully understand what an amazing individual he 
was. A historian for his people and an important part of American life, 
he accomplished more in his life than I could ever describe in these 
remarks.
  As I read the articles that were so well researched, they reminded me 
of meeting and getting to know him when he was on the board of All 
American Indian Days. That was a gathering that would draw tribal 
members from all over the United States to Sheridan, WY. They would 
come to share their history, their culture, their traditions, their 
sports, their dances, and their arts and crafts. I know that gathering 
meant a lot to him because one of his top priorities in his life was to 
ensure that the legacy of the Crow and all tribes would never be 
forgotten and that their way of life would be passed down from 
generation to generation.
  In an effort to bring us all together as one and overcome the racial 
divides that separate us, a man named F.H. Sinclair--a columnist for 
the Sheridan Press who was known by his nickname of ``Neckyoke 
Jones''--came up with the idea of gathering all the tribes together in 
Sheridan, WY, to demonstrate these talents and abilities. I grew up 
there, and I was fascinated by the event. As you can imagine, it took a 
substantial amount of money to organize and plan the event each year, 
but it paid big dividends for those who were able to attend and all 
those who heard about it. It was a source of great pride for us all to 
have this time when we would come together and celebrate the culture of 
the tribes and the individuals who were so near to us. It provided the 
kind of exposure and interaction that is so necessary to bring people 
together and overcome prejudice and bias. I could see the difference 
the gathering made and the impact it had on those who attended.
  Events like that and the opportunity they provide help us to get to 
know people who come from different cultures and backgrounds and help 
us to understand and appreciate each other. They remove the boundaries 
that are created by fear and a lack of understanding. They foster and 
increase the feeling of community that makes our cities and towns 
better places to live.
  I remember how Joe served on that board and helped with the Miss 
Indian American Pageant that was part of All American Indian Days. It 
was a competition of young women who were chosen by their tribes based 
on their knowledge of their tribal culture, their history, and their 
traditional dress. My mother, Dorothy Enzi, worked with Joe Medicine 
Crow and Suzie Yellowtail on the particulars that needed to be worked 
out to put on the pageant. My mother would then chaperone the winner to 
events during the year.
  Joe Medicine Crow had a great affection for Wyoming and a love of our 
land that was never surpassed. In addition to the Crow, Joe Medicine 
Crow was well known to the Wyoming Arapahos and Shoshones. In so many 
ways, Joe Medicine Crow was an ambassador for his tribe and his way of 
life. He was an inspiration to us all.
  Joe Medicine Crow referred to his life as living in two worlds. In 
one, he worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 32 years. Then he 
returned and fit right back into the other and the culture that 
surrounded him. It didn't bother him that his life was divided into two 
worlds. In fact, he said he enjoyed them both.
  The tributes to him and the way he lived his life have already 
started coming in from those who knew him, his family, and his friends. 
He was a military hero, having served in the Army in World War II. He 
was not only a student of history, he was a historian who helped to 
preserve the stories and the culture of the Crow. He also had a great 
respect for all the traditions of his people.
  I will always find a sense of pride and inspiration in the words he 
used to describe Wyoming. He said that although sage can be found in so 
many places in the West, the most sacred sage had to be collected on 
the tribal lands in Wyoming.
  Joe Medicine Crow was given 102 years of life, and he made the most 
of every day. He has a record of which we can be very proud. That is 
why I hope you will seek out the stories about him that made him such 
an important part of our history.
  In 2009 President Barack Obama presented him with the highest honor 
awarded to a civilian, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I know it 
must have meant a great deal to him to be so recognized--not for 
himself but for what he knew it would mean to current and future 
generations.
  Now he has passed on from this life and left behind more 
accomplishments and achievements than we could possibly imagine. His 
life was like that--102 years of making a difference every day, a 
difference that will always be remembered and never be forgotten.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.


 Congratulating the Villanova Wildcats on Winning the 2016 NCAA Men's 
                    College Basketball Championship

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I intend to address an amendment to the 
FAA authorization bill that Senator Casey and I are offering. But 
before I do that, I wish to take a quick moment to celebrate an amazing 
basketball game last night and an amazing victory for an amazing team, 
the Villanova Wildcats. It just made everyone in Pennsylvania so proud. 
They have had a fantastic season, a fantastic tournament, and last 
night I think we witnessed one of the greatest college basketball games 
ever.
  I know that is saying an awful lot. There have been a lot of college 
basketball games, but the game was unbelievable. We had two fantastic 
teams, extremely well matched, extremely talented, very well coached on 
both teams, and they just played phenomenally. I don't know how many 
times the lead changed. I don't think it ever got more than 10 points 
away from either team. It was just so much fun to watch, all the way 
through.
  I think Jay Wright has proven once again what a magnificent coach he 
is. The kids who played demonstrated just amazing teamwork and talent, 
and all of the attributes we want to see in college athletics we saw on 
display last night.

[[Page 3683]]

  I can't say enough about the University of North Carolina. What a 
great team they are. They played with so much heart and they played so 
well. I think we are going to watch the end of that game--the final 5 
seconds of that game--for a long time to come.
  I will say when Marcus Paige took that shot, it looked to me like he 
was 20 feet behind the three-point line. He had almost been knocked 
over. He was airborne in a very odd and awkward position because he had 
just dodged another player. He got the shot off, and somehow it 
dropped. They tied the game, and there were 4.7 seconds left. At that 
point, I thought: Well, I am in for a late night because this is going 
to be the first of overtimes since it is tied with only 4.7 seconds 
left, but that was not the way it ended, as we know. The Wildcats had a 
plan and they executed it brilliantly with a great play to move the 
ball up the court quickly, to get it to Kris Jenkins, who put up a long 
three-point shot, and released it just before the buzzer went off. The 
buzzer went off while the ball was sailing through the air, sunk the 
basket, and won the game with no time left. It was the most dramatic 
and exciting finish to a basketball game that I can recall.
  I want to take this moment to congratulate the Villanova Wildcats on 
an outstanding season, tournament, and game last night. Congratulations 
to our new national champions.
  Mr. President, now let me turn my attention to the amendment I 
alluded to; that is, an amendment to the FAA reauthorization bill. 
Senator Casey and I are going to offer as an amendment the legislation 
we have introduced as a freestanding bill, and that is the Saracini 
Aviation Safety Act of 2016. I thank Senator Casey for the very good 
work he has done on this issue for some time.
  Let me give a little bit of background on the amendment, which is 
based on the legislation that is named after Victor Saracini. Victor 
Saracini was a Bucks County, PA, native. He was a Navy pilot. After he 
left the Navy, he became a commercial airline pilot. He was a captain. 
He was the captain of United Flight 175 which, as my colleagues will 
recall, was one of the planes that was captured by terrorists on 9/11. 
The fact is, Captain Saracini was murdered by the terrorists when they 
stormed the cockpit, took control of the plane, killed Victor Saracini, 
and then flew the plane into the World Trade Center.
  Victor Saracini left behind his wife Ellen, who is with us today in 
the Senate. She has been a very forceful and effective advocate for 
greater safety on board our commercial planes. Victor also left behind 
two daughters, Kirsten and Brielle.
  The amendment does something very simple. It requires a secondary 
barrier to the cockpit on commercial aircraft. That is all. That will 
prevent unauthorized individuals from getting into the cockpit. It is 
as simple as that. It is a simple, lightweight, inexpensive technology, 
readily available. It is actually made from a wire mesh, and it 
provides a barrier between the passenger cabin and the cockpit door. It 
would only be engaged when the cockpit door is open.
  So why is this necessary? It is necessary because it is still 
entirely possible for terrorists to hijack commercial aircraft.
  Back in 2001, after 9/11, Congress took a step to make commercial 
aircraft cockpits more secure. They mandated the installation of 
reinforced doors, and these reinforced doors are much stronger than the 
doors that used to exist. It is very difficult--almost impossible--to 
breach those doors when they are closed, but the threat remains because 
on every long flight and on many short flights the doors are open. At 
some point during the course of the flight, pilots often get up and 
they get out of the cockpit. They have to go to the restroom or they go 
to get some food or a flight attendant goes in to check on the pilots 
or to bring them something they want. That moment when that door is 
opened, that door is no longer a barrier. Therein lies the danger. 
There is the moment of opportunity for terrorists.
  The FAA fully acknowledges the serious nature of this risk. In April 
of 2015, an FAA advisory said the following:

       On long flights, as a matter of necessity, crewmembers must 
     open the flight deck door to access lavatory facilities, to 
     transfer meals to flightcrew members, or to switch crew 
     positions for crew rest purposes. The opening and closing of 
     the flight deck door (referred to as ``door transition''), 
     reduces the protective anti-intrusion/anti-penetration 
     benefits of the reinforced door. . . . During this door 
     transition, the flight deck is vulnerable.

  Of course, it is not only the FAA that was able to figure this out. 
The terrorists understand this as well.
  The 9/11 Commission report said this:

       Ali Sheikh Mohammed told them--

  And the ``them'' in this case refers to the terrorists he was 
instructing.

       Ali Sheikh Mohammed told them to watch the cabin doors at 
     takeoff and landing to observe whether the captain went to 
     the lavatory during the flight and to note whether the flight 
     attendants brought food into the cockpit.

  I continue to quote:

       The best time to storm the cockpit would be about 10 to 15 
     minutes after takeoff when the cockpit doors typically were 
     opened for the first time.
       Furthermore--

  States the 9/11 Commission report--

     they had no firm contingency plans--

  ``They'' being the terrorists--

     in case the cockpit door was locked. They were confident the 
     cockpit doors would be opened and did not consider breaking 
     them down a viable idea.

  Since then, we have made the doors even more durable. It would be 
even more difficult to actually break down the door or otherwise open a 
closed door. The problem is when the door is open.
  This is not just a theoretical risk. Since 9/11, there have been at 
least 51 attempts at cockpit breaches worldwide. Five attempts have 
been successful. One successful attempt occurred in 2006 on Turkish 
Airlines Flight 1476. Terrorists were successful in entering the 
cockpit after a flight attendant opened the door to ask the pilots if 
they needed anything.
  So it seems to me unacceptable, when we have a readily available 
solution, to continue to take this risk. It is just common sense to 
install secondary barriers on commercial planes. These are inexpensive, 
several thousand dollars to install. They are lightweight and easy to 
use and very compact when they are not engaged. The only people who 
would be inconvenienced by these secondary barriers would be 
terrorists. Had the secondary barriers, these kinds of barriers, been 
installed on 9/11, it would have made the job very difficult for the 
terrorists to ever get into the cockpit.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I think this is a 
sensible amendment. The substance of this has been approved in the 
House. We ought to pass it on the Senate floor and pass this FAA 
reauthorization underlying bill. If we do that, in time, our skies will 
be that much safer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa


                 Proper Role of a Supreme Court Justice

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, a significant number of Americans 
believe the Supreme Court is highly politicized. Its approval rating 
has fallen over the years, not surprisingly. Its approval rating has 
dropped most drastically in recent years following the President's 
appointment of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan.
  There are four Justices who vote in a liberal way in effectively 
every case the public follows. There are two Justices who stick to the 
constitutional text and who vote in a consistently conservative way. 
One Justice votes mostly, but not always, in a conservative way, and 
one Justice votes sometimes with the conservatives and sometimes with 
the liberals.
  All of the liberals were appointed by Democrats, the conservatives 
and swing Justices were appointed by a Republican President, but in a 
speech shortly before Justice Scalia's death, Chief Justice Roberts 
maintained that the public wrongly thinks Justices view themselves as 
Republicans or as Democrats. Of course, it is irrelevant to the public 
how the Justices view themselves. What is troubling is that a large 
segment of the population views the Justices as political.

[[Page 3684]]

  It is appropriate and instructive, then, to ask why the public takes 
this view and whether that view is warranted. I believe the public's 
perception is at least sometimes very warranted.
  The Chief Justice ruled out that this perception has anything to do 
with what the Justices themselves have done. Instead, he attributes it 
to the Senate confirmation process. As he sees it, Senators 
``frequently ask us questions they know it would be inappropriate for 
us to answer. Thankfully, we don't answer the questions.''
  The Chief Justice also stated:

       When you have a sharply divided political divisive hearing 
     process, it increases the danger that whoever comes out of it 
     will be viewed in those terms. You know, if the Democrats and 
     Republicans have been fighting so fiercely about whether 
     you're going to be confirmed, it's natural for some members 
     of the public to think, well, you must be identified in a 
     particular way as a result of that process.

  On the one hand, the Chief Justice identified precisely why it would 
be bad for the Court and the nominee to move forward in the middle of a 
hotly contested Presidential election campaign.
  As you have heard this Senator say, it would be all politics and no 
Constitution. Of course, that was the thrust of another Senator a few 
years back--Chairman Biden's argument in 1992. But in another respect, 
the Chief Justice has it exactly backwards. The confirmation process 
doesn't make the Justices appear political. The confirmation process 
has gotten political precisely because the Court itself has drifted 
from the constitutional text and rendered decisions based instead on 
policy preferences. In short, the Justices themselves have gotten 
political, and because the Justices' decisions are often political and 
transgress their constitutional role, the process becomes more 
political.
  In fact, many of my constituents believe, with all due respect, that 
the Chief Justice is part of this problem. They believe that a number 
of his votes have reflected political considerations, not legal ones. 
Certainly, there are academics who agree.
  In a recent New York Times article, academics appealed to the Chief 
Justice's political side. These academics asked him to intervene in the 
current Supreme Court vacancy, suggesting that it could be a so-called 
John Marshall moment for Chief Justice Roberts. That is a political 
temptation that the Chief Justice should resist.
  I can't think of anything any current Justice could do to further 
damage respect for the Court at this moment than to interject 
themselves into what Chairman Biden called the political ``cauldron'' 
of an election year Supreme Court vacancy.
  In a recent speech, the Chief Justice said: ``We're interpreting the 
law, not imposing our views.''
  He further stated: ``If people don't like the explanation, or don't 
think it holds together, you know, then they're justified, I think, in 
viewing us as having transgressed the limits of our role.''
  Again, with all due respect to the Chief Justice, tens of millions of 
Americans believe, correctly, that the Supreme Court has transgressed 
the limits of its role. Tens of millions of Americans believe, 
correctly, that too many of the Justices are imposing their views and 
not interpreting the law.
  That is the major reason why we should have a debate about the proper 
role of a Supreme Court Justice. We need to debate whether our current 
Justices are adhering to their constitutional role.
  As the Chief Justice remarked, although many of the Supreme Court's 
decisions are unanimous or nearly so, the Justices tend to disagree on 
what the Chief Justice called, in his words, the ``hot button issues.'' 
We all know what kinds of cases he has in mind when he talks about 
``hot button issues''--freedom of religion, abortion, affirmative 
action, gun control, free speech, and the death penalty. One can 
probably name a lot of others. The Chief Justice was very revealing 
when he acknowledged that the lesser known cases are often unanimous, 
and the hot button cases are frequently 5 to 4.
  But why is that?
  The law is no more or less likely to be clear in a hot button case 
than another case. For those Justices committed to the rule of law, it 
shouldn't be any harder to keep personal preferences out of a 
politically charged case than any other case.
  In some cases, the Justices are all willing to follow the law, but in 
others where they are deeply invested in the policy implications of the 
ruling, those cases tend to turn out 5 to 4. The explanation of these 
5-to-4 rulings must be that in hot button cases some of the Justices 
are deciding based on their political preferences and not--as they 
should be--on the law. But if hot button cases are being decided by 
politicians in robes, then the Supreme Court has no more of a right 
than the voters to be the final word.
  The Chief Justice regrets that the American people believe the Court 
is no different from the political branches of government. But again, 
and with respect, I think he is concerned with the wrong problem. He 
would be well-served to address the reality--not the perception--that 
too often there is little difference between the actions of the Court 
and the actions of the political branches. So, Physician, heal thyself. 
In case after 5-to-4 case, the Justices who the Democrats appointed 
vote for liberal policy results.
  This can't be a coincidence. Democratic Presidents know what they 
want when they nominate Justices--Justices who will reach politically 
liberal results regardless of what the law requires. This, of course, 
is what our current President means when he says that he wants Justices 
to look to their ``heart'' to decide the really hard cases. That is an 
unambiguous invitation for Justices to decide the hot button cases 
based on personal policy preferences. That, of course, isn't the law, 
and it is not the appropriate role for the Court. It is no wonder, 
then, that the public believes the Court is political.
  What Democratic Presidents want in this regard is what they get--even 
before Justice Scalia's death. Leading scholars found this Supreme 
Court to be the most liberal since the 1960s. Justices appointed by 
Republicans are generally committed to following the law. There are 
Justices who frequently vote in a conservative way. But some of the 
Justices appointed even by Republicans often don't vote in a way that 
advances conservative policy.
  Contrary to what the Chief Justice suggested, a major reason the 
confirmation process has become more divisive is that some of the 
Justices are voting too often based on politics and not on law. If they 
are going to be political actors after they are confirmed, then the 
confirmation process necessarily is going to reflect that dynamic.
  For instance, just last week, after one of my Democratic colleagues 
met with Judge Garland, the Senator said after discussing issues like 
reproductive rights: ``I actually feel quite confident that he is 
deserving of my support.''
  Obviously, I don't know what they discussed during that meeting or 
what Judge Garland said about reproductive rights, and, to be clear, I 
am not suggesting anything inappropriate was discussed. My point is 
this: If Justices stuck to the constitutional text and didn't base 
decisions on their own policy preferences or what the President asked, 
based on what is in their heart or on empathy for a particular 
litigant, then Senators wouldn't deem it necessary to understand 
whether the nominee supports reproductive rights or not. With this in 
mind, is it any wonder that the public believes the Court is political?
  If we want the confirmation process to be less divisive, if we want 
the public to have more confidence that the Justices haven't exceeded 
their constitutional role, then the Justices themselves need to 
demonstrate that in politically sensitive cases their decisions are 
based on the Constitution and the law and not on political preferences 
or what comes from the heart or because of some empathy.
  So here is where we are about the public perception of the Court 
being political. When the Justices return to their appropriate role of 
deciding cases

[[Page 3685]]

based on the facts and the law, public perception of the Court will 
take care of itself.
  I yield the floor.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ayotte). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________