[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7143-7171]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion to proceed.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 469, S. 2943, a bill to 
     authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2017 for military 
     activities of the Department of Defense, for military 
     construction, and for defense activities of the Department of 
     Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such 
     fiscal year, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, it is an honor to serve in the Senate. It 
is an honor to serve the people of Arkansas. I would never complain 
about the tasks we are given.
  There is one small burden I bear, though. As a junior Senator, I 
preside over the Senate--I usually do it in the mornings--which means I 
am forced to listen to the bitter, vulgar, incoherent ramblings of the 
minority leader. Normally, like every other American, I ignore them. I 
can't ignore them today, however.
  The minority leader came to the floor, grinding the Senate to a halt 
all week long, saying that we haven't had time to read this Defense 
bill; that it was written in the dead of night.
  We just had a vote that passed 98 to 0. It could have passed 
unanimously 2 days ago. Let's examine these claims that we haven't had 
time to read it--98 to 0--and in committee, all the Democrats on the 
Armed Services Committee voted in favor of it. When was the last time 
the minority leader read a bill? It was probably an electricity bill.
  What about the claims that it was written in the dark of night? It 
has been public for weeks. And this, coming from a man who drafted 
ObamaCare in his office and rammed it through this Senate at midnight 
on

[[Page 7144]]

Christmas Eve on a straight party-line vote?
  To say that the Senator from Arizona wrote this in the dead of night, 
slipped in all kinds of provisions, that people don't have time to read 
it, that is an outrageous slander. And to say he cares for the troops, 
how about this troop and his son and his father and his grandfather--
four generations of service, to include almost 6 years of rotting in a 
prisoner of war camp. To say he is delaying this because he cares for 
the troops, a man who never served himself, a man who, in April of 
2007, came to this very floor, before the surge had even reached its 
peak, and said the war was lost when over 100 Americans were being 
killed in Iraq every month, when I was carrying their dead bodies off 
an airplane at Dover Air Force Base--it is an outrage to say we had to 
delay this because he cares for the troops. We are delaying it for one 
reason and one reason only: to protect his own sad, sorry legacy.
  He now complains in the mornings that the Senate is not in session 
enough, that our calendar is too short. Whatever you think about that, 
the happy byproduct of fewer days in session in the Senate is that this 
institution will be cursed less with his cancerous leadership.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I believe that the other side of the aisle 
has been informed that, at noon, I will ask that we move forward with 
the bill.
  Mr. President, it is my understanding now that, most likely, the 
Democratic leader will object to moving forward with the defense 
authorization bill. That is deeply regrettable. That is, in fact, 
confounding to me; that even though there may be differences on the 
other side of the aisle, that we would not move forward, given the 
situation in the world today and the men and women who are serving in 
our military.
  I would remind my colleagues that this legislation was passed through 
the committee with a unanimous vote from the Democrats and under the 
leadership of my friend from Rhode Island, Senator Reed, who has also 
served this Nation honorably in uniform, albeit, poorly educated. The 
fact is, we have a tradition the Senator from Rhode Island and I have 
been scrupulously observing; that is, to work in a bipartisan fashion 
for the good of the country.
  I would mention a couple of things. One is the Democratic leader 
yesterday or the day before said they hadn't had time to read the bill. 
The bill has been online since last Wednesday--last Wednesday, a week 
ago. Obviously, that seems to be sufficient time for most to be able to 
examine the bill. We have been on the floor explaining it. There have 
been press releases. There have been all kinds of examination of the 
legislation.
  As has been pointed out, we have had legislation when the Democratic 
leader was in the majority that we never saw until the time he demanded 
a vote, particularly when they had 60 votes in order to override any 
objections that we might have--including, by the way, the passage of 
the now-disastrous ACA, or known to some of us as ObamaCare, which now 
we are seeing the catastrophic consequences, including our citizens 
seeing dramatic increases in their premiums to the point where it is 
simply unaffordable, and there is more to come.
  The fact is, after 13 hearings with 52 witnesses, a unanimous vote on 
the other side, 3 in opposition on my side, we came up with a defense 
authorization bill. The defense authorization bill has reached the 
President's desk and has been signed by the President for 53 years. In 
my view, there is no greater example over that 53-year period of the 
ability of both sides to work together for the good of the country.
  Here we have, just recently, what appears to be--most evidence 
indicates--a terrorist act, the blowing up of an airliner. We have 
almost unprecedented suicide attacks in the city of Baghdad, which have 
killed over 1,000 people in the last year. We have ISIS metastasizing 
throughout the region, including Libya, and now rearing its ugly head 
in Afghanistan. We have a situation of abuse of human rights that is 
almost unprecedented. We have a migrant refugee flow into Europe, which 
obviously it is well known that Mr. Baghdadi has instructed some of 
these young men and possibly young women to be prepared to commit acts 
of terror in European and American countries. Already, some of those 
plots have been foiled.
  The Director of National Intelligence has testified before our 
committee that the world is in more crises than at any time since the 
end of World War II; that there are more refugees in the world than at 
any time since the end of World War II; that America is in danger of 
terrorist attacks.
  Whom do we rely on? We rely on the men and women who are serving in 
the military. That is why we passed, on a vote of 24 to 3 through the 
Senate Armed Services Committee--work on both sides in a cooperative 
and bipartisan fashion--the Defense authorization bill.
  You would think that all of those facts would argue for us to take up 
this bill immediately and debate and vote. That is what the Senate is 
supposed to do. That is what our Founding Fathers had in mind.
  So, again, the Democratic leader is going to object to us moving 
forward. Why in the world, with the world as it is today, with the 
challenges we face, with the men and women who are serving our Nation 
in uniform with courage--one of whom is a citizen of my own State who 
was just killed--why are we blocking the ability of this Nation to 
defend, train, equip, and reward the men and women who are serving in 
the military? Why? Why won't we move forward and debate? We have always 
had lots of amendments, lots of debates, lots of votes, and we have 
done that every year in the years I have been here.
  The Democratic leader and I came to the Congress together, by my 
calculation, almost 34 years ago. We have had a very cordial 
relationship from time to time, and we have strong and spirited 
differences. Those differences have been honest differences of opinion 
because of the party and the philosophy he represents. But I must say 
to my friend from Nevada, I do not understand why we would not go ahead 
and take up this legislation and begin voting. That is what we are 
supposed to do. That is what has happened for 53 years where we have 
debated, we have gone to conference, we have voted, and it has gone to 
the desk of the President of the United States. A couple of times it 
had been vetoed, and we had gone back, but the fact is, we have done 
our job.
  What greater obligation do we have than to defend this Nation? What 
greater obligation do we have than to help and do whatever we can to 
assist the brave Americans who are serving in uniform? What is our 
greater obligation? I think it is clear to everyone what our obligation 
is. That obligation is to do our job and do our duty.
  The American people have a very low opinion of us--on both sides of 
the aisle. When they see that we are not even moving forward on 
legislation to protect, help, train, and equip the young men and women 
who have volunteered to serve this Nation in uniform, no wonder they 
are cynical. No wonder.
  We have a piece of legislation that is literally a product of 
hundreds of hearings, literally thousands of hours of discussion and 
debate, of work together on a bipartisan basis, and we are not able to 
move forward with it and begin the amending process. I don't get it. I 
say to the Democratic leader, I don't get it. I do not understand why 
he doesn't feel the same sense of obligation that the rest of us do; 
that is, as rapidly as possible, for us to take care of the men and 
women who are serving, meet the challenges of our national security 
that our larger--according to the Director of National Intelligence--
than at any time since the end of World War II. That is what I do not 
get. Maybe the Democratic leader will illuminate us on that issue, but 
I don't see that there is any argument.
  When the Democratic leader and I meet the brave men and women who are 
serving in uniform--those who are at Nellis Air Force Base and in Yuma 
at Luke Air Force Base--and tell them that we wouldn't move forward 
with

[[Page 7145]]

legislation that was to protect and house and feed and train those men 
and women, I would be very interested in the response the Democratic 
leader might have to that.
  I urge my friend of many years--for the last 34 years--to allow us to 
move forward and begin debate on this very important issue. I know of 
no greater obligation we have than to address this issue of national 
security, which is embodied in the Defense Authorization Act. In all 
these 34 years, I have never objected to moving forward with this 
legislation. I have had disagreements. I have had strong problems with 
some of the provisions. But I thought it was important to debate and 
vote.
  I urge my colleagues not to object. The bill has been available for 
people's perusal for over a week now. Everybody knows the major points 
of the bill. So I hope the Democratic leader will not use that as a 
flimsy excuse because it is not one. But most importantly, I appeal to 
my colleague from Nevada to think of the men and women in uniform who 
are serving our country and to think of our obligation to act as best 
we can to protect them and help them carry out their responsibilities 
and their duties as they go into harm's way.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be 
yielded back and that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 
2943.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). Is there objection?
  The Democratic leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, every time I 
come to the floor when my friend is on the floor speaking, I need not 
tell everyone within the sound of my voice how much I admire him and 
the service he has rendered to our country, both as a naval pilot and 
as a Senator and as a Member of the House of Representatives. However, 
he has a job to do and I have a job to do.
  I, like most people in the Senate, have not served in the military. I 
acknowledge that. But I didn't go to Canada. I did my best. I had civil 
obligations during the time my friend was in Vietnam.
  Mr. McCAIN. If my colleague will yield, I believe you have served the 
State of Nevada and this Nation with honor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I do believe we have a job to do. He does 
his job the best he can, and everyone knows how hard he works. But I 
also have obligations to my caucus, to this body, and to the country.
  This is a very big, important bill. I have had the good fortune for 
all these years to work on it. It has been difficult sometimes where we 
just barely made it. I can remember one year that Senator Levin, who 
was our man on defense, and Senator McCain--we were able to do the bill 
in 2 days. It was an emergency situation. But we have gotten the bill 
done over all the years I have been here. We have gotten it done all 
the years I have been the leader.
  Here is the situation in which we find ourselves. This bill is almost 
2,000 pages long. As he indicated, it could have been online from 
sometime Wednesday night, but the truth is that we didn't get the final 
version of this bill until last night at 5 o'clock. The committee voted 
on the appendix to this bill last night. They completed it at 5 o'clock 
last night. An important part of the bill deals with the intelligence 
aspect of this bill, and a lot of people want to read that and the rest 
of the bill.
  I don't think it is asking too much to allow Members to understand 
the bill, to have the opportunity--the Presiding Officer is a very 
studious man; maybe he will read every page of that bill. Most Senators 
will not, but they will make sure their staff reads every line. Why? 
Because they need to do that.
  This bill was marked up in closed session. It was marked up 
privately. There was no press there. It was done in closed rooms in the 
Russell Building. I believe that is where all the markups took place. 
The bill came to the floor.
  We have amendments we want to offer. We have a caucus tomorrow to 
talk about that. We have a number of Senators who are preparing 
amendments, and they want to discuss them with the rest of the 
Democrats prior to moving to this bill.
  We will be out for a week for the Memorial Day recess. When we come 
back, it would seem to me it would be much more efficient and 
productive if we were ready on that Monday we come back to start 
legislating. We are not ready to do that yet. We are not ready. We are 
going to proceed very deliberately in spite of all the castigations 
about me made on the Senate floor. I am going to ignore those because, 
to be quite honest with you, anytime we need to talk about any 
statements I have made at any time, I am happy to do it, but I think it 
would distract from what we are doing here today to go into the 
statements made by the junior Senator from Arkansas. But I do have to 
say this: I am not the reason we are having such short workdays in the 
Senate, even though that was alleged by my friend from Arkansas.
  If we are going to do our job, we are going to do it the best way we 
can because it is important.
  I have said it here on the floor, and I won't go into a lot more 
detail than what I am saying here, but in the room where we meet on a 
closed, confidential basis, last Thursday I met with the Secretary of 
Defense. I have the good fortune every 3 weeks to be briefed on what is 
going on around the world by the military and by others who help us be 
safe and secure in this country. We talked about a number of things 
that we need not discuss here openly, but one thing we can talk about 
openly here is that the Secretary of Defense thinks it is really, 
really, really--underscore every ``really'' I said--to put in this bill 
what my friend from Arizona said he is going to do, and that is move 
$18 billion from warfighting--the overseas contingency fund--into 
regular, everyday authorization matters that take away from the ability 
of this Pentagon to plan what they are going to be doing next year or 
the year after--this is something we--I--need to take a hard look at.
  I said earlier today that I appreciate very much the Republican 
leader responding to a letter we wrote to him, saying that on these 
budgetary matters, he would stick with the 2-year deal we made. I am 
glad. That is great. But my friend from Arizona wants to violate that 
deal, and I think that is wrong. We are going to take a hard look at 
that because we believe that a secure nation not only depends on the 
Pentagon--bombs and bullets--but it also depends on all the other 
agencies of government that help us maintain our security: the FBI, the 
Drug Enforcement Administration, all of the different responsibilities 
of the Department of Homeland Security.
  Let's understand that no one is trying to stall this legislation. If 
nothing happens on this bill in the next 24 hours, I think it will be a 
much better process to finish the bill when we come back. We will do it 
with our eyes wide open. No one will be able to say: I didn't know that 
was in there. What I said--and I will say it with my friend on the 
floor--is there are a lot of little goodies in this bill. I think we 
need to take a look at those.
  My friend, of all people, who has worked hard during the entire time 
he has been in the Senate--he and I didn't get much done in the House. 
When you are there for two terms, you don't get much done. But in the 
Senate, he has gotten a lot done, focusing on what he believes is 
wasteful spending in the government. I disagreed with him on some of 
the examples he has pointed out--some of them have dealt with Nevada--
but he has done that well.
  We have a responsibility and we have been trained pretty well by the 
senior Senator from Arizona to look at these bills, what is in them. I 
have been told by my staff that we better take a close look at some of 
the things that have been identified in this bill.
  I am not here in any way to not give my full support to the efforts 
made by Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on this committee. This bill is 
not John McCain's bill. It is not Jack Reed's bill. It is our bill. I 
want to make sure that this bill--our bill--comes out in a way that is 
good for the American people. My view of what is good for the American 
people may be different from

[[Page 7146]]

others, but I think we have a responsibility to do everything we can to 
proceed in a very orderly fashion.
  As soon as we get on this bill, I will do my very best to move it 
along just as quickly as possible.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. McCAIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Cuban Refugee Benefits

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I came to the floor a few weeks ago to 
bring to people's attention an abuse that is occurring in our welfare 
system, and it involves Cuban immigration.
  Let me describe the situation we face today. If an immigrant comes to 
the United States from Cuba legally, entering the United States from 
another country--let me rephrase that. If an immigrant legally enters 
the United States from any country in the world, except for Cuba or 
Haiti, they cannot immediately receive Federal benefits. If you are a 
legal immigrant and came to the United States from Venezuela, Mexico, 
or Japan--you did your paperwork and paid your fees--you do not qualify 
for any Federal benefits for the first 5 years you are in this country. 
However, there is an exception for people who come from Cuba. Under the 
Cuban Adjustment Act, anyone who comes from Cuba legally or illegally--
if you cross the border and say ``I am a Cuban''--you are immediately 
accepted into the United States legally. I am not here today to talk 
about changing that status, even though there is a significant 
migratory crisis that is building, and I do think that issue needs to 
be reexamined.
  Here is the exception to the law: If you come to the United States 
from Cuba, whether you entered across the border or entered on a visa, 
you are one of the only immigrants in America who immediately and 
automatically qualifies for Federal benefits. You don't have to prove 
you are a refugee or prove you are fleeing oppression. You don't have 
to prove anything. You are automatically assumed to be a political 
refugee and given not just status in the United States but a series of 
public benefits.
  For decades this has been because U.S. law made the presumption that 
if you were leaving Cuba to come to the United States, you were 
obviously a refugee. I believe for a lot of people who are still coming 
that is true because they are fleeing a horrible and oppressive regime 
and have had nowhere else to go because in many cases they fear for 
their lives in Cuba. For some time now, there has been growing doubt 
about whether all of the people who are now coming from Cuba are, in 
fact, fleeing oppression. Or are they increasingly becoming more like 
an economic refugee?
  From what we see in South Florida with our own eyes and also because 
of the investigative reporting by the South Florida SunSentinel, we 
know there are growing abuses to this benefit. The reason is that many 
people who are coming from Cuba, supposedly as refugees seeking to flee 
oppression, are now traveling back to Cuba 15, 20, or 30 times a year. 
That raises an alarm right away.
  If you are entering the United States and immediately and 
automatically given status as refugees--in addition, you are being 
given access to a full portfolio of Federal benefits--because you are 
supposedly fleeing oppression, but then traveling back to Cuba 15, 20, 
or 30 times a year in many cases, it causes us to have a serious doubt 
about whether everyone who is coming here from Cuba should be 
considered a refugee for purposes of benefits, but today they are.
  Even at this very moment, we are seeing a historic increase in the 
number of people who are originally from Cuba crossing the Mexican-U.S. 
border. We have seen an increase in the number of rafters. Last week 
there was a standoff between the Coast Guard and some Cuban migrants 
who went up to a lighthouse and wouldn't come down because they wanted 
to get the status under the wet-foot, dry-foot policy.
  I think we can debate that issue. I am not here today to propose 
changes to the status, but I do think we have to ask ourselves: What 
about the Federal benefits? What about the benefits they are collecting 
which are specifically and exclusively intended for refugees and 
refugees only? Obviously, if you are traveling back to Cuba over and 
over again, you are not a refugee and therefore should not be eligible 
for these benefits.
  The abuses we have now seen are extensive. The stories of people who 
are actually living in Cuba--they are living in Cuba but collecting 
government benefits in America, and their family is wiring the money to 
them. There are people who are collecting an assortment of benefits 
from housing to cash, and that money is being sent to them while they 
live in Cuba for months and sometimes years at a time. It is an 
outrage. It is an abuse. By the way, I am of Cuban descent and live in 
a community with a large number of Cuban exiles and migrants. Our own 
people in South Florida are saying that this is an outrage. They see 
this abuse. It is their taxpayer money, and they want something done 
about it.
  Today we learned from the Congressional Budget Office, which analyzes 
these issues in-depth and determines how much they actually cost 
taxpayers, that the long-term cost of this abuse over the course of the 
next 10 years will be approximately $2.5 billion to the American 
taxpayer. A significant percentage of that $2.5 billion is going to 
people who aren't even living in the United States. We know from 
investigations that the money often ends up back in Cuba. We have seen 
people abuse the system over and over again by having a relative in the 
United States who goes to the bank every month, takes a cut, and sends 
the rest of the money to them. That is your money that is being sent to 
them.
  The American people are a generous people, but right now those who 
abuse the system are taking American taxpayers for fools, and we need 
to stop it. That is why I am hopeful that today's report from the 
Congressional Budget Office will give us renewed momentum to end this 
problem and reform the system. The way to do it is by passing a law I 
have introduced with Congressman Carlos Curbelo in the House that ends 
the automatic assumption in U.S. law that assumes all Cuban immigrants 
are refugees. It says that in order to receive refugee benefits, they 
have to prove they are refugees or legitimately fearing for their lives 
if they were to return to Cuba.
  This is how the process works: If you cross the U.S.-Mexico border 
and you are from Cuba or arrive on a raft, you will get your status and 
will be legal in this country, but you will have to prove you are 
actually coming because you fear persecution before you automatically 
qualify for refugee benefits. In essence, all I am asking is that 
people prove they are political refugees before they qualify for 
Federal benefits that are available only to political refugees.
  Lest anyone think this is some sort of partisan trick, this is a 
bipartisan measure that my Democratic colleague, the senior Senator 
from Florida, supports. It has over 50 bipartisan cosponsors in the 
House, including the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
  I hope we can get this done, even if the best way to do it is on its 
own merits with a straight up-or-down vote or as an amendment included 
in a larger bill. With all the talk about paying for Zika virus 
funding, maybe this is one of the ways we can pay for some of that, but 
let's get it done.
  Mr. President, $2.5 billion is still real taxpayer money, a 
significant percentage of which is being misspent on a loophole that 
exists in the law that most people don't even know is there. I truly 
hope we can address it. It makes all the sense in the world. Everyone 
is asking for it. There is no good-faith or reasonable reason to oppose 
it, and it is my hope we can address it before this Congress adjourns 
at the end of this

[[Page 7147]]

year, or sooner if possible, and that we can put an end to these abuses 
once and for all.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to add my voice to Chairman 
McCain's comments a little bit ago about moving forward on the Defense 
authorization bill. I have the honor of serving with him and Senator 
Reed, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. It is a huge 
honor, but as Senator McCain mentioned, we also have an enormous 
obligation and responsibility. The biggest, most important thing we do 
here is probably our national defense.
  The chairman asked a really important and simple question: Why? Why 
are we not taking up the Defense authorization bill at this time? Why 
is the minority leader moving forward with a filibuster on this 
important bill that was voted out of committee almost on a complete 
bipartisan basis?
  We have an enormous obligation to our troops and to the national 
defense of our country, and that is what this bill is all about. We can 
debate it, but we need to begin that debate.
  My colleague and friend from Arkansas was on the floor here a little 
bit ago, expressing his frustration about why we are delaying this 
legislation. I share that frustration, and I share the chairman's 
frustration.
  Why? Why are we filibustering? Why is the minority leader 
filibustering this important bill?
  I remind my colleagues on the floor that this is actually a pattern. 
If you remember, at this time last year the minority leader led a 
filibuster of the Defense appropriations bill. It funds the bill so we 
can support our troops who are, by the way, overseas in combat. Despite 
the fact that the President and others in the White House want to tell 
the American people they are not in combat, they are in combat. We all 
know it. We know it is a fiction.
  Last year the minority leader led a filibuster of the Defense 
authorization bill--spending for our troops--not once, not twice, but 
three times on the Senate floor. This pattern of procedural delays 
clearly undermines our troops. There is no doubt about that.
  I want to add my voice to my colleague. I believe it is a bipartisan 
frustration, not just Republicans. Remember, the NDAA came out of 
committee with huge bipartisan support.
  One of the most important things we do here is focus on our national 
defense, focus on having a strong military, and focus on taking care of 
our veterans. We should be bringing that bill to the floor, not 
delaying it any longer, and debating its merits and moving forward. I 
just don't understand why we are not doing that right now. I certainly 
don't think the American people understand it.


                            The U.S. Economy

  Mr. President, another important topic that we should be talking 
about on the Senate floor more often is the state of our economy. In my 
view, national defense and economic opportunity for Americans are the 
critical things we need to debate in the Senate.
  As I have been doing recently, I wanted to come down here and talk 
about the health of our economy and the importance of getting to a 
healthy economy because--make no mistake--we have a sick economy right 
now. We need to bring the U.S. economy, the greatest economic engine of 
growth the world has ever known, back to life. We need to bring 
opportunity once again to people who have lost economic hope.
  Let me be clear. Americans don't easily give up on hope. We are a 
country of hope, a country of dreams. Progress is in our DNA. We are 
always moving forward. But Americans are starting to lose hope because 
they are not seeing opportunity, they are not seeing progress, and they 
are not seeing a healthy economy. So what is going on?
  I would like to provide a quote from a recent article in the Atlantic 
Monthly entitled: ``The Secret Shame of the Middle Class.'' I would 
recommend this article to my colleagues. The author is talking about 
Americans from all spectrums who, because of the weak economy and 
because of no economic opportunity, are living paycheck to paycheck. 
Millions of Americans, as he describes in this article, are living 
paycheck to paycheck. He says:

       It was happening to the soon-to-retire as well as the soon-
     to-begin. It was happening to college grads as well as high 
     school dropouts. It was happening all across the country, 
     including places where you might least expect to see such 
     problems. I knew that I wouldn't have $400 in an emergency. 
     What I hadn't known, couldn't have conceived, was that so 
     many other Americans wouldn't have that kind of money 
     available to them, either. My friend and local butcher, 
     Brian, who is one of the only men I know who talks openly 
     about his financial struggles, once told me, ``if anyone says 
     he's sailing through, he's lying.''

  Then the author goes on to make a very important statement. He says: 
``In the 1950s and '60s, American economic growth democratized 
prosperity.'' Everybody had opportunity with strong economic growth. 
But, ``in the 2010s,'' he says, ``we have managed to democratize 
financial insecurity.''
  That is what is happening across the country. In my opinion, a big 
part of the problem--one that is playing out in our politics right 
now--is the fact that those who are hurting are not being heard. They 
see their lives. They know their lives. They know the challenges. 
Nearly half of Americans would have trouble finding $400 in a crisis, 
as this article lays out, and yet it doesn't match up with what their 
leaders are telling them.
  Let me give you an example. In a recent speech, President Obama 
actually said: ``We are better off today than we were just seven years 
ago.'' He said that anybody who tells you differently ``is not telling 
the truth.'' That is the President.
  I guarantee you the President is not agreeing with this article. I 
hate to inform the President, but even former President Bill Clinton 
recently had this to say about the Obama economy: ``Millions and 
millions and millions . . . of people look at the pretty picture of 
America [President Obama] painted, and they cannot find themselves in 
it . . . ''
  That is former President Bill Clinton on the current State of the 
U.S. economy. It is not hard to see why so many can't find themselves 
in the picture that the President has painted of our current economy. 
During nearly 8 years of the Obama administration, the number of 
Americans participating in the labor force shrank to its lowest level 
since 1978. What does that mean? It means Americans have just quit 
looking for jobs. In the last 8 years, more Americans have fallen into 
poverty, family paychecks have declined, and the number of people on 
food stamps has skyrocketed by 40 percent--all during the last 8 years. 
The percentage of Americans who own homes, the marker of the American 
dream--homeownership--is down by over 5 percent.
  Let me give you another number that, although many Americans aren't 
familiar with, impacts them deeply. A few weeks ago it was announced by 
the Commerce Department that the economy essentially stopped growing. 
Last quarter we grew at 0.5 percent of GDP, or gross domestic product. 
That is an indicator of progress, an indicator of the health of our 
economy, of our country, of opportunity. It was stagnant. It didn't 
grow.
  Let me put this in perspective. In the past 200 years, American real 
GDP growth through Democratic or Republican Presidents--it doesn't 
matter; we have had ups and downs--has been about 4 percent, or 3.7 
percent. This is what has made our country great. This is what has 
fueled the engine of the middle class of America. Under this 
administration, the average has been an anemic 1.5 percent of GDP 
growth. We have never had even one quarter of 3 percent of GDP growth. 
Now the administration doesn't talk about that. In fact, very few do. 
We need to talk about it more on the Senate floor. But the American 
people feel it.
  This article describes it. They see it again and again when one of 
their neighbors or loved ones loses a job, when they see their 
paychecks stagnant for 8 years, when they see another small business in 
their community closing, or when they start wondering how they are 
going to put their children through college. They see it in the long 
road ahead of them that shows no promise of a brighter future because 
of

[[Page 7148]]

the lack of economic opportunity. They see it, and, as this article 
describes, they feel the stinging shame.
  The bottom line is that we have had a lost decade of economic growth 
and opportunity in the last 10 years. We need to get serious about this 
problem. We need to focus on this problem almost above any other issue.
  My colleagues a lot of times come down here and talk about a moral 
imperative. This is a moral imperative--to create a healthy economy for 
the entire country--but we are not doing that.
  Now, what are the solutions? Well, we ask the experts: How do you 
grow the economy? How can we create articles that talk about 
opportunity and not the shame of the middle class? One idea certainly 
is that we have to reform a Federal Government that tries to 
overregulate every aspect of our economy, especially the small 
businesses. When asking the experts or politicians, they all agree. A 
number of us had an opportunity to talk to former Chairman of the Fed 
Alan Greenspan yesterday. This clearly is one of the issues where he 
thinks we need to ignite traditional levels of economic growth--
regulatory reform.
  Again, Bill Clinton, in a Newsweek cover article in 2011 said that 
the No. 1 thing we need to do is to move forward on regulatory reform 
to get projects moving, to build this country again.
  Even President Obama, in his State of the Union Address this year, 
said we have to cut redtape and we have to lessen the regulatory burden 
on Americans. So there seems to be widespread agreement, but it is all 
talk.
  When we actually try to act, when we actually try to do just minimal 
reforms to this explosion in the growth of Federal rules and 
regulations over the last several decades--when we try to do just a 
little of this--we are stopped, stymied, and caught up in politics.
  Let me give you just two recent examples. I introduced a bill called 
the RED Tape Act, a very simple bill debated on the Senate floor that 
essentially would put a cap on Federal regulations--a ``one in, one 
out'' rule. If a Federal agency is putting more regs on the U.S. 
economy, then we have to look at our big portfolio of regulations and 
sunset the equivalent economic burden in terms of regs. It is a very 
simple idea. It is a 4-page bill. The UK is doing this, Canada is doing 
this, and it is working.
  Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle certainly 
thought it was a good idea, but when we brought it to the floor--the 
simple idea that would help our economy--there was a party-line vote. 
It goes down.
  Just last week, as we were debating the Transportation appropriations 
bill, we wanted to move on another simple reg idea. The idea is simple. 
If there is a bridge in a neighborhood and it is structurally 
deficient--and by the way, the United States has 61,000 structurally 
deficient bridges--and the bridge is not going to be expanded but is 
just going to receive maintenance or be reconstructed, the permit can 
be expedited so that it doesn't take 5 years to build or reconstruct 
the bridge. Again, it was a very simple amendment that used common 
sense on regs. We were told: No, the other side viewed it as a poison 
pill. We even heard that the White House was thinking about threatening 
to veto the bill if that amendment was attached to it. These are 
simple, commonsense ideas that the American people fully support to 
keep them safe and to grow our economy.
  We need to grow our economy. We need to take action on the Senate 
floor to help grow our economy. We need to bring this sick economy back 
to health, but we are not doing it right now. Instead, we see articles 
such as the one I just mentioned about middle-class Americans living 
paycheck to paycheck because they don't have opportunity.
  What we need to do, in addition to focusing on the defense of our 
Nation and taking care of our troops, is to get this anemic economy--
this lost decade of economic growth that we have seen over the last 10 
years--roaring again, to provide opportunity and hope for Americans. 
That is what we should be focused on.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to speak on S. 2943, 
which is the National Defense Authorization Act that we recently 
invoked cloture on the motion to proceed. I guess we are going to be on 
this bill, and I am glad we are. In particular, I want to address 
section 578 of this act.
  Section 578 is designed to protect our servicemembers' children when 
they are in school--specifically, to protect them from convicted 
pedophiles and other dangerous felons who try to infiltrate our 
Nation's schools, when they can, to find more victims. This is a cause 
I have been working on for at least 2\1/2\ years in the Senate. We have 
a serious problem. We have made some progress, but we have a long way 
to go.
  For me, this effort to address this began with a terrible story of a 
child named Jeremy Bell. The story begins in my home State of 
Pennsylvania, in Delaware County, PA.
  A schoolteacher had molested several boys and had raped one of them. 
Officials at the school figured out that something was going wrong, 
prosecutors were brought in, but they never felt they had enough 
evidence to press charges to bring a case. The school decided they 
would dismiss this teacher. They didn't want him around anymore, but, 
shockingly and appallingly, they decided that to facilitate his 
departure from the school, they would help him get a job in another 
school. They would actually recommend him for hire somewhere else. 
Well, he did get a job in another school, in West Virginia, in part, 
with the help of the letter of recommendation he got from the Delaware 
County School District.
  That teacher went on to become a school principal, and of course he 
continued his appalling victimization of children. It ended when he 
raped and murdered a 12-year-old boy named Jeremy Bell.
  Justice eventually caught up with that monster who had gone from 
Pennsylvania to West Virginia. He is now in jail, where I hope he will 
remain for the rest of his life, but for Jeremy Bell, of course, that 
justice came too late.
  Sadly, Jeremy Bell is not alone. Year after year, we see staggering 
and heartbreaking numbers. In 2014, at least 459 teachers and other 
professional school workers across the country were arrested for sexual 
misconduct with the kids they are supposed to be taking care of. That 
is more than one per day. In 2015, the number went up. It got worse--it 
was 496 arrests--again, schoolteachers and school personnel who have 
unsupervised contact with these children, and so far 2016 is not doing 
any better. We have had 185 arrests in just 144 days.
  One way to look at this is, just since I got engaged in this battle 
2\1/2\ years ago, we have had at least 1,140 school employees arrested 
for sexual misconduct with the children in their care. Of course, these 
are just the ones who have been caught. These are the ones we know 
about. These are the ones where there is enough information and 
evidence that the law enforcement folks were comfortable in making an 
arrest. How many more? How much is this going on?
  Of course, every one of these stories is a terrible tragedy for the 
victims. Like the child whose sexual abuse began at age 10 and only 
ended when, at 17, she found she was pregnant with the teacher's child 
or the teacher's aide who raped a young mentally disabled boy who was 
in his care. These are hard things to talk about but think about how 
infinitely harder it is for the victims who suffer through this, and 
the examples go on and on.
  This has to stop. We have to be doing everything we can to try to 
prevent this and to protect the kids who are in our country's schools. 
This is why, in

[[Page 7149]]

2013, I introduced a bill that was meant to do exactly that. It was 
called the Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act. 
It is a bipartisan bill, and it included fundamentally two protections.
  The first was a ban on this terrible practice that led to the murder 
of Jeremy Bell. It holds that a school would have to be forbidden from 
knowingly recommending for hire someone who was a known child molester. 
It seems so appalling. How could this happen? But the Jeremy Bell case 
is not the only case. In fact, this phenomenon by which schools try to 
get rid of their monsters by making him someone else's problem is so 
widely recognized that schools will facilitate that person getting a 
job somewhere else. This phenomenon has its own name. It is called 
passing the trash. People who are advocates for crime victims, people 
who help children cope with the horrendous experience they have been 
through, know this very well. They know this phenomenon because they 
have seen it all too often. That is the first piece of my legislation 
from 2013, make it illegal to knowingly pass the trash.
  The second piece is to require a thorough background check--a 
thorough criminal background check whenever someone is being hired who 
will have unsupervised contact with children in the school. That means 
teachers, but it also means coaches, it means the schoolbus driver, it 
means contractors, if the contractor will have that kind of access to 
the children.
  Last December we had an important victory on this because the first 
protection, the prohibition against knowingly passing the trash, passed 
the Senate. It was a battle. There were people here who fought this 
very aggressively, but eventually I was able to get a vote on the 
Senate floor and it passed overwhelmingly. It was then included in the 
text of the Every Student Succeeds Act. That legislation has since been 
signed into law. So it is now the law of the land that it is forbidden 
to knowingly recommend these pedophiles for hire.
  As I said, that was only the first part of our legislation. The 
success we had back in December was only a first step. We were not able 
to succeed with the tougher, more comprehensive background checks we 
need. So I said at the time: I am not finished. We are going to 
continue this fight--and we are.
  That is why I am here today--because the legislation we are about to 
take up, the National Defense Authorization Act, takes us another 
important step forward, which helps in this effort to have more 
comprehensive background checks.
  I have a personal interest in this. I have three young children--a 
15-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 6-year-old--and I represent 12.8 
million Pennsylvanians. The vast majority of the people I represent 
have the same view I do, which is: When we put our kids on a bus in the 
morning to go to school, we have every right to believe we are sending 
our child to the safest possible environment. So that is what this is 
about.
  What this legislation does in the Defense authorization bill is it 
incorporates a bill I introduced earlier this year. That bill is called 
the protecting our servicemembers' children act. The national defense 
authorization bill takes my bill, this protecting our servicemembers' 
children act, and incorporates it. It builds it in. It covers DOD, 
Defense Department-operated schools in the United States, of which 
there are many, but it also covers schools in school districts that 
receive Federal impact aid because children of our military folks 
attend those schools. So that is one of the ways we cover some of the 
cost of educating the children of our men and women in uniform. We do 
it by providing this impact aid to the school districts to which they 
send their kids.
  What my legislation does and what the NDAA therefore does is it 
requires these schools to conduct the same kind of background check 
that the DOD requires of its own schools, which is exactly the right 
thing to do. It also provides that if a person has been convicted of 
certain serious crimes--which includes violent or sexual crimes against 
a child--then that criminal may not be employed in a position that 
gives him unsupervised access to children. It is as simple as that.
  This will cover schools that serve about 17 percent of our 
schoolchildren, roughly 8.5 million kids. I think this is just common 
sense. A background check for school workers is simply common sense. 
All States, all school districts do this to some degree. The problem 
is, not everyone does it to an adequate degree. It should not be 
possible for a person who has been convicted of child rape to walk out 
of prison, walk down the street, and get a job in an elementary school. 
That should be absolutely impossible.
  I am not suggesting that a convict shouldn't be able to get any job, 
but I absolutely am suggesting that he should not be able to get a job 
in which he has unsupervised contact with children. To me, that is a 
no-brainer.
  This feature--my bill, this legislation--does not impose any new 
burdens on the Department of Defense. The DOD regulation already 
requires this thorough background check on all DOD-operated schools. 
But what we do is reaffirm that so that no future administration could 
water that down by Executive order or some other way.
  Also, I suggest that there is an important reason why it is 
absolutely essential that we provide this protection to the members of 
our military; that is, the men and women who put on the uniform of this 
country don't always have a say in where they are going to be 
stationed. They don't necessarily get to decide which base and which 
State they are going to work and, therefore, which school their 
children will attend. So when they get moved to another State, over 
which they have no say, they certainly have no say in the background 
check policy of that school or that school district or that State. The 
least we can do for these men and women who take enormous personal 
risks and make huge sacrifices to protect us is to protect their kids 
when their kids are going to school.
  I should salute the efforts of State Senator Tony Williams from 
Pennsylvania because the children in Pennsylvania are protected by a 
very rigorous background check system, thanks largely to Senator 
Williams' insistence that we do this and his advocacy for legislation 
that gets that done.
  When Pennsylvania servicemembers are stationed in another State, they 
still deserve the same level of protection that they get in 
Pennsylvania. But Tony Williams' bill that is now the law of the land 
in Pennsylvania does not apply beyond the borders of Pennsylvania, and 
that is why we need this legislation--to make sure that all the men and 
women who wear the uniform of this country can know that their children 
will have this protection. The least we can do for the people who are 
ensuring the safety and security of all of us in our country is to make 
sure their children are safe from convicted pedophiles and other 
dangerous felons who attempt to infiltrate the schools.
  Let me also thank someone else. I want to thank the chairman. Senator 
McCain has been an ally of mine in this ongoing battle to keep our kids 
safer for years now. His leadership has been outstanding. It is because 
of his commitment to the safety and security of our kids that my 
legislation is in the National Defense Authorization Act, the 
legislation that we are considering today.
  Senator McCain was a cosponsor of my first bill to protect kids in 
the classroom. His support was essential in the victory we had last 
year when we were able to prohibit passing the trash. It is absolutely 
the case that without his steadfast support, we would not have this 
provision in this legislation today. So I am very grateful to Senator 
McCain for his leadership on this, and I am proud to be standing with 
him on this important issue.
  Let me close with this. It is past time to act; it is past time to do 
something about this. In the 2\1/2\ years since I have been trying to 
make sure that we stop permitting schools to pass the trash, in the 
2\1/2\ years since I have been trying to get the most rigorous 
standards for doing background checks--during that time alone--there 
have been over 1,100 school employees arrested. Those are the ones we 
know about.

[[Page 7150]]

  How much bigger does this number have to get? How much longer do we 
have to wait? More importantly, how many kids have to be brutalized? 
How many kids have to have their childhood shattered before we are 
going to impose the toughest possible regimen to protect these kids? I 
have seen way more than enough. The families who have been torn apart 
by this devastating crime have seen way too much.
  I urge my colleagues today to get this done. Let's take a big step 
forward in providing a significant additional level of security and 
protection for the children of the men and women who sacrifice so much 
to protect all of us.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. 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. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to use a visual aid during my speech.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Genetically Modified Food Labeling

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the most important three words in our 
Constitution are the first three words: ``We the People.'' When our 
Founders were crafting our Constitution, they put those words in 
oversized print so that hundreds of years later Members of Congress--
the House and Senate--and citizens across this Nation would remember 
that this is what our Constitution is all about--``We the People.'' It 
is not ``we the powerful'' or ``we the privileged.'' It is ``We the 
People.''
  President Jefferson said that we can only claim to be a republic to 
the degree that the decisions of our government reflect the will of the 
people. He went on to say that the only way our government will make 
decisions which reflect the will of the people is if the people have an 
equal voice. An example of that was the town square, where each 
individual could stand up and make their position known before a vote 
was held on whom they were going to elect, and so on and so forth.
  The challenge today is that the town square is the television, radio, 
and Web. Unfortunately, those are not free, the way the town square was 
in Jefferson's day, and that means that the role of money can change 
everything.
  Unfortunately, we have had a couple of Supreme Court decisions that 
do not do due accord to the very heart of our Constitution because they 
have essentially said that even though the commons, or town square, is 
for sale, we are going to allow the few people and corporations with 
billions of dollars to buy up the town square and use the equivalent of 
a megaphone sound system to drown out the voice of the people. That is 
the opposite of what ``We the People'' is all about, and that is the 
opposite of what our Constitution is all about.
  Periodically, I have come to the floor to talk about a variety of 
issues that are relevant to the Jefferson vision--that we can only be a 
republic to the degree that our decisions reflect the will of the 
people. The issue I will talk about today--and this is an issue that 
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents overwhelmingly support--is 
about whether or not their food has been genetically modified, and if 
so, should those ingredients be listed on the package.
  I am raising this issue today because on July 1 of this year, Vermont 
will have a new law which will require labeling on the packages of food 
that have genetically modified ingredients, and that has led to a 
conversation here in this Chamber about whether we at the Federal level 
should allow that to happen. Should we allow Vermont to make this 
requirement? There are a lot of food producers who say: We really don't 
want the people to know about the details of their food. Well, I think 
Americans across this country disagree.
  As I mentioned, the overwhelming majority support the right to know. 
The argument has been made that we can't allow State after State or 
county after county to have conflicting standards about what we list on 
food labels because that would be impossible for interstate commerce, 
and that is a fair point. How can a food manufacturer be expected to 
accommodate a multitude of different labeling requirements from county 
to county, city to city, or State to State? That is a fair case if 
there is a risk of multiple standards. There is no risk of that at this 
moment because only one State has passed a standard which will be going 
into effect in a couple of months. Just as we have seen with other 
policies across this Nation, to something that one State tries, another 
State might say: Yes, let's do that but in a slightly different way. So 
there is a legitimate concern about conflicting standards. Again, it is 
not an immediate concern or something to cause this Chamber to act 
today. But if indeed other jurisdictions say they would like to have 
the same type of information available to their citizens, who also 
overwhelmingly want that information, then there is a potential for 
that and a legitimate cause for us to discuss it here.
  Here is the thing. If you are going to take away the ability of 
cities, counties, and States to respond to the citizens' desire to know 
about whether there are GMOs, or genetically modified ingredients, in 
their food, then you have to replace it with a national standard that 
answers that question. If you fail to do so, you are simply denying the 
rights of citizens across the country to know what is in their food, 
and that is just wrong.
  There is a name for the bill for denying Americans the right to know, 
and it is called the DARK Act, or Deny Americans the Right to Know Act. 
It is appropriate that it be called the DARK Act because it is all 
about keeping consumers in the dark about something they would like to 
know. There are many people here who say: Well, we know better than 
consumers. They want to know, but we don't want them to know because 
there is no reason they should know because why would they have any 
concern if they knew all the facts? Is that our decision to make?
  We decided to label food and let people know whether there is salt in 
it. Some people want it, some people don't. We decided to put calories 
on the package. Some people want more calories, and some want less, but 
they have the right to know. Some people want preservatives to make it 
taste better and some don't, and so on and so forth. It is simply the 
consumer's right to know and make choices accordingly.
  This conversation is not about whether GMO food is safe to eat. 
Person after person has come to this floor and said it is safe to eat, 
there is no proven impact on citizens, and so therefore it is 
legitimate to strip citizens from the right to know. There are lots of 
ingredients we put on packages that have no carcinogenic effects, but 
citizens want the full list, and that is what we provided them. Some 
want to know the individual pieces of that story.
  Let's turn back to this question about the fact that GMOs 
themselves--genetically modified plants--are not substantially in one 
camp or another, wonderful or terrible. There are all kinds of genetic 
modifications that have taken place. For example, this chart shows 
golden rice. Golden rice has been modified to have vitamin A. In parts 
of the world where there is vitamin A deficiency, this has been very 
beneficial. Let's turn to carrots. Some carrots have been modified to 
treat for a genetic disorder called Gaucher's disease, a metabolic 
disorder where people lack a specific enzyme which helps rid the body 
of fatty substances that then accumulates causing enlarged livers and 
spleens and bone damage, bruising, and anemia. So people are very happy 
we have a way to address that.
  Researchers have been developing sweet potatoes that withstand 
multiple viral infections commonly encountered in Southern Africa. That 
enables sweet potatoes to be grown and be part of the subsistence and 
is a substantial source of food in that region. There are also genetic 
modifications that cause concerns. Most genetically modified crops

[[Page 7151]]

grown in the United States have been altered to confer resistance to a 
chemical herbicide known as glyphosate. Glyphosate is a weed killer, 
and essentially as the application of glyphosate has gone up 
dramatically from 1994 to the current time--we can see the huge 
increase in the application of this weed killer on this chart--we have 
had a corresponding general depletion of the monarch butterfly in those 
regions where glyphosate is used. That is a concern. Monarchs have been 
crashing, and that is a concern to folks.
  Look at and think about the runoff. If you put billions of gallons of 
weed killer on crops, and there are billions of gallons running into 
the waterways, it has an impact on the waterways. It changes the makeup 
of the waterways because of the weed killer killing various organisms 
within the streams. Herbicides in our waterways can have a negative 
impact on fish, mussels, amphibians, and microorganisms.
  There is also a challenge in which plants evolve in response to the 
applications of glyphosate. We can end up with what are called 
superweeds, which are weeds that have been in the presence of the 
herbicide so often that the natural mutations occurring cause the weeds 
to evolve and they become superweeds. We had the same problem with 
these corn-destroying rootworms. They have been evolving to be 
resistant to the pesticide that is placed into the plant cell by 
genetic modification.
  In short, there are competing considerations to balance, some 
benefits and some concerns. Some people have reached the conclusion 
that they are very comfortable consuming genetically modified foods, 
and other individuals can reach a different equally justifiable 
conclusion that they have concerns and want to know more about the 
specific types of modification. The way they find out is, they get an 
alert on the package to show there are GMO ingredients and they can go 
to the Web site and look at the herbicide involved. That is why 
labeling matters. It is an alert to the citizens so they can gain more 
information and decide if they are comfortable or uncomfortable.
  What we have seen are companies that are starting to say, because we 
value the relationship with our customers, because our company believes 
in having high integrity in that relationship, we do not want to be 
part of the DARK movement--the ``deny Americans the right to know'' 
movement. We want to be part of the movement that says if our consumers 
want to know, we are going to give them that information.
  There are a variety of companies that have announced they are going 
to provide that information on their foods. One of them is the Mars 
company. Here I have a package of M&Ms, and right on the package they 
are now disclosing. They have a phrase. I know it would be impossible 
to read this so we have enlarged this a bit and reproduced it. It says 
``partially produced with genetic engineering.'' So they give a heads-
up on every package of M&Ms across the country. They give a heads-up to 
consumers, and if they want to know more about the details, they can 
contact Mars to find out about the details. That is integrity. That is 
honoring citizens who have a desire to know what is in their food.
  We have all grown up seeing the wonderful pictures of Campbell's 
soups in advertisements and the warm hearty meal of tomato soup. I know 
when I was sick as a child I always looked forward to that Campbell's 
tomato soup. Campbell's has said: We want to honor the integrity of the 
relationship with our consumer. We are not going to be part of the 
``deny Americans the right to know'' movement. We are not going to be 
on the side of the DARK, and we are going to be on the side of 
information that citizens desire to have. They are putting labels on 
their products, and a number of companies are following suit in honor 
of protecting the consumer's right to know.
  That is certainly commendable, and I commend the companies that do 
not feel like they are trying to mislead or hide from their consumers, 
but in fact support the integrity of the relationship with the folks 
who buy their products. Some of the companies that have done this are 
ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg's, and, as I mentioned, Mars. They have 
already begun to label their products in anticipation of Vermont's July 
1 requirement.
  Vermont has a 6-month grace period--so, again, it is not just around 
the corner--but the beginning period companies are asked to meet is 
July 1. Because companies are now putting it on their labels, they are 
discovering there is nothing scary to consumers about it. Just like 
anything else on the ingredients list on labels of packages, it is 
information that different consumers can evaluate when it matters to 
their life.
  There is a group of Senators who have said they do want to be part of 
the DARK Act, deny Americans the right to know. So we will have a 
voluntary labeling plan nationally. We will take away State's rights to 
put information on the package and replace it with a voluntary request 
for companies to disclose. That is no justification for taking away the 
ability of States to require what consumers want, which is not a 
voluntary disclosure, it is a required disclosure. If a State wants to 
do that, they should be honored. If we take away that right, we need to 
do a replacement at the national level.
  As a part of this movement, this Deny Americans the Right to Know 
Act, they say: You know what. We are willing to suggest that companies 
put a barcode on their product and consumers can scan that code or they 
can put a quick response computer code, which is a square code with all 
the little squares on it--something like what you have on an airline 
ticket. They suggest that we put this quick response code on it, and if 
somebody wants to know what is in our product, they can scan it with 
their smartphone and look it up on a Web site. That is not a consumer-
friendly label. That is a scam.
  Not all consumers have a smartphone. Not all consumers have a digital 
plan that allows them to scan something in that fashion. They don't all 
have a phone with a camera. We are asking them to have to spend money 
out of their phone plan in order to look up information that should 
have just been on the package in the first place. That is a tax. That 
is a DARK Act tax on American consumers.
  Some of my colleagues who talk about not putting taxes on individuals 
just voted for that DARK tax a few weeks ago. I hope they reconsider 
that type of imposition on the moms and dads and brothers and sisters 
throughout America. No one going down the aisle to shop is going to sit 
there and compare four different soups by taking pictures of four 
different soups and going to four different Web sites to look up that 
information. Plus, consumers are also disclosing information about 
themselves when they go to those Web sites. That is an invasion of 
privacy on top of the DARK tax that my colleagues want to impose on 
American consumers. It is wrong on multiple levels.
  Some of my colleagues say: Let's put an 800 number on the label, with 
no explanation of why it is there. Well, you can take most products in 
America and you can probably find an 800 number somewhere on that 
package with some corporate information line, but when you put an 800 
number on with no explanation of why it is there, that is not consumer 
information. That is like taking an ingredients list on the package and 
replacing it with an 800 number. Call this and we will read you a list 
of ingredients on the phone. It is absurd, it is ridiculous, and it is 
offensive to try to say that type of scam is a replacement for 
consumer-friendly information right on the package.
  Do you want to know how to determine whether you are being true to 
the desire of consumers to have a consumer-friendly label? Well, I will 
tell you. It is called the 1-second test. We have a product on the 
shelf. We pick it up, turn it over, and look--1 second. I see the 
answer that there are or are not genetically modified ingredients in 
this package. That is the 1-second test. That is a fair replacement for 
State standards.
  It can be done in a variety of ways. There can be a symbol on the 
package. I suggest that the FDA or USDA can

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choose a symbol. Brazil chooses to have a key for transgenic in a 
triangle. We can do that. We can put a ``B'' on it for biotechnology. 
We can put a ``G'' or ``GM'' for genetically modified. There are all 
sorts of options that would be a simple way for consumers to see what 
is there. We can put a phrase such as Mars has done on their candy or 
we can put an asterisk on the ingredients that have been modified with 
a phrase below to explain the asterisk. All of those are possible, but 
an unlabeled phone number, an unlabeled barcode or quick response 
code--because it is a deliberate effort to pretend you are solving 
something when you are not, that is a shameful scam, and it should 
never pass scrutiny on the floor of the Senate.
  I said earlier that citizens across this country want a consumer-
friendly label. We can look to a survey that was done. This is a 2016 
likely election voters survey that was done in November of 2015, and it 
shows that 89 percent of Americans said they would like to have the 
information on the label. They say they favor labels on foods that have 
been genetically engineered or contain genetically engineered 
ingredients. So it is basically 9 out of 10 who not only favored but 
strongly favored such labeling. To put it simply, 9 out of 10 Americans 
want the information on the label, and rounding off, 8 out of 10 feel 
very strongly about this.
  Here is something that is interesting. We are often divided by party 
here. The Republicans are sitting on the right side, the Democrats are 
on the left side. There is partisan division--maybe Independents have a 
view in the middle. On this issue, Democrats believe, 9 out of 10, 
rounding off, that we should have these labels. Republicans believe, 9 
out of 10, that we should have these labels. Wouldn't it be ironic if 
the one thing Americans can agree on--whether they are east coast or 
west coast or North or South or Democrat or Republican or Independent--
the one issue they can all agree on, this body decides to do the 
opposite and take away that ability. That certainly counters the 
fundamental principle that Jefferson put forward of the ``we the 
people'' democracy. We can only claim to be a republic to the degree 
that what we do reflects the will of the people.
  So we should think about that a lot because there is a lot of 
conversation about folks who want to spring a surprise on the American 
people. They want to come down here to the floor on some bill in the 
near future, with some amendment or some motion or some 
reconsideration, and spring a surprise and drive the DARK Act through 
with little public notice. Why is that? Because they are afraid of the 
opinions of the American people. They want to hide their decision in a 
short period of time with no ability for the American people to be 
filled in on the fact that they are attempting to pass legislation that 
overturns what 90 percent or 9 out of 10 Americans want. So we need to 
be aware of this.
  I encourage my colleagues: Do not be part of this ``deny Americans 
the right to know'' movement--this movement that is opposed by 9 out of 
10 Americans in the Democratic camp, in the Republican camp, in the 
Independent camp, in every geography of America. Don't be part of going 
so profoundly, so fundamentally, so overwhelmingly against the will of 
the American people.
  We put a lot of things on packages because the American people ask 
for that information. If you buy in a grocery store of any size, they 
are required to put whether fish is farm raised or wild. Why do we 
require that? It is not because being farm raised is going to kill 
people; it is because citizens have a desire to know and to vote with 
their food dollar--vote with their food dollar for something they 
believe to be important. It may have to do with the taste of the 
product. It may have to do with the difference in antibiotics that are 
used in farmed versus wild. It may have to do with their desire to 
envision that food when it was swimming the broad, beautiful Pacific 
Ocean, the incredible salmon of the Pacific Ocean and the salmon of the 
Atlantic Ocean. But the point is, it is their right to know. Nothing 
much is as important to us as what we put into our bodies.
  People fundamentally feel they should be able to have full 
information. We, indeed, provide information on whether juice is 
reconstituted from concentrate or is fresh, not because it will cause 
you to get sick, not because it is unhealthy to consume, but because 
consumers desire to know and they want to exercise their food dollars 
appropriately. Some people say: I really would like to have the stuff 
the way it was squeezed out of the fruit rather than frozen and 
condensed and reconstituted. So we provide that information because of 
that citizen desire. Should we not honor our citizens in this issue as 
well? Isn't it wrong for a group of Senators to plot to come to this 
floor and to put forward an amendment or put forward a reconsideration 
or put forward a bill on short notice so that the American people have 
little chance to weigh in? Personally, I think it is very wrong. That 
is why I am speaking today.
  It is not as if this question of putting labels on food is something 
new or different; it is being done all around the world. Sixty-four 
countries, including 28 members of the European Union and Japan and 
Australia, already require mandatory GMO labeling. We can add Brazil to 
that list. We can add China to that list.
  China has no democratic forum in which to respond to the will of the 
people. The decisions are top down. Yet the leadership of China has 
said: Our consumers care enough about this that we are going to 
disclose that information. Isn't it profoundly ironic that here in the 
United States of America, where citizens have a voice, a group of 
Senators are trying to suppress that voice, are trying to implement and 
deny Americans the right to know, when the leaders of China have 
decided this is information consumers deserve?
  Let me return to where I started--the vision of a ``we the people'' 
democracy. We have gone far afield from that. The role of money in 
politics has put us in a very different position because that money 
weighs in, and it corrupts the fundamental nature of our legislative 
process. That is why we are having this debate over denying Americans 
the right to know when 9 out of 10 want that information--because of 
the corrupting power of massive concentrations of campaign cash in our 
system.
  So let's do something we should do all the time: Set aside the 
campaign. Set aside the desire to raise money. Set aside those issues 
and ask yourself, aren't we here to help pursue the will of the people? 
In this case, in our ``we the people'' democracy, shouldn't we give our 
citizens the same right to know--a right they overwhelmingly expect and 
demand--as 64 other countries in the world?
  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. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Tulsa Race Riot Anniversary

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I would like to ask this body for just a 
moment to remember something that there are probably many people who 
have never heard of for the first time because, for whatever reason, a 
bit of America's past seemed to just disappear from memory as soon as 
it occurred. Let me take us back almost 100 years for a moment.
  The summer of 1919 was commonly referred to after the fact as the 
``Red Summer.'' The Red Summer included race riots all over America, 
White-on-Black riots specifically. There were White individuals moving 
into Black neighborhoods and devastating those communities. That 
happened in Charleston, SC; Long View, TX; Bisbee, AZ; Norfolk, VA; 
Chicago; Washington, DC; Elaine, AR; Knoxville, TN; Omaha, NE; and many 
other places. Scattered around the country, one after another, month 
after month, those race riots moved.
  As World War I veterans--at that time, we called it the Great War--as

[[Page 7153]]

those veterans returned home, many looking for jobs--and the anxiety 
that rose up from that--as many Black Americans who had bravely fought 
in World War I pursued jobs and were unable to get them or were hated 
by Whites because some of these Black individuals came home and took 
some of the jobs that they were ``entitled to,'' the tensions began to 
rise across the country. It burst out into riots.
  Oklahoma was mostly spared from that in 1919 and in 1920, but on May 
30 of 1921, a young man named Dick Rowland who worked downtown, an 
African-American gentleman, was 19 years old. He was actually shining 
shoes in downtown Tulsa, which, if you have ever been to Tulsa and if 
you have missed it--if you have never been there, you need to go. It is 
an absolutely beautiful town. If you can ever see the pictures of what 
Tulsa looked like in the 1920s, you would be astounded. It was an oil 
boom town. Oil was discovered all around Tulsa, and people came from 
all over the country. Most of those individuals around Tulsa who put in 
oil wells suddenly became rich, and Tulsa became a wealthy community 
extremely rapidly. The architecture and history of it is beautiful. 
But, like every other town in Oklahoma in the 1920s, it was also 
segregated by law.
  The Northern District of Tulsa at that time was called the Greenwood 
District, just north of downtown. It was an incredibly prosperous 
community. In fact, African Americans from around the country moved to 
Tulsa because there were doctors and lawyers and businesses, grocery 
stores, department stores. It became a very wealthy community because 
some individuals lived in Greenwood and worked in Tulsa, which was a 
fast-growing, wealthy city.
  Also, there was great freedom within the Greenwood District. Oddly 
enough, the segregation that was required in Oklahoma at the time also 
caused Greenwood to grow because many African Americans could not buy 
groceries or could not go to certain restaurants or go into certain 
businesses or department stores in Tulsa. So when those businesses 
opened up in Greenwood and the population continued to grow, it became 
a fast-growing city as well. In fact, it was nicknamed the Black Wall 
Street of America. That community was extremely well educated, had many 
World War I veterans who had come home, many businesses and 
entrepreneurs. It became known as a place where Blacks could come from 
around the country and start businesses, grow businesses, and grow into 
prosperity. I would love to be able to show you all the homes and the 
places--what that looked like in the 1920s. It was a beautiful 
district.
  I will get back to my story about Dick Rowland. Working downtown in 
Tulsa--most buildings in downtown Tulsa would not allow a Black man to 
go to the bathroom there, but the Drexel Building would, so he would go 
to the Drexel Building to go to the restroom. He would go on the 
elevator because the restroom he was allowed to use was on an upper 
floor. That particular day, on May 30, 1921, he got into the elevator, 
and the elevator operator was a 17-year-old young lady, a White lady 
named Sarah Page. The elevator doors closed. As they got to the upper 
floor, they got off. At that point, Sarah Page screamed. To this day, 
we don't know why. We don't know if there was an altercation. We don't 
know if Dick Rowland bumped her and she screamed. We don't know if she 
was just scared, and we don't know why. But a friend heard her scream, 
came running, saw Dick Rowland stepping out of the elevator, and 
accusations started immediately. Within 24 hours, the police arrested 
Dick Rowland and took him to the courthouse and the jail in downtown 
Tulsa.
  By the time the afternoon paper had been released on May 31, 1921, 
the word was out that a young African-American male had raped a White 
female in the elevator at the Drexel Building, and a mob began to form 
outside of the courthouse. That mob gathered around. They say it 
started out with around 100 and then quickly grew to 200.
  The sheriff in Tulsa, understanding the threat there of this mob 
gathering around the building calling for Dick Rowland to be delivered 
to the mob, immediately turned off the elevator in the courthouse 
building and put up armed guards in every staircase around that 
building to not allow any of the people from the mob to get into the 
building, to try to get upstairs, and to be able to get Dick Rowland 
out. But the mob continued to grow outside that building. I understand 
that by the end of that day, it was now approaching over 1,000.
  Not far away from there at all, the men who lived in the Greenwood 
District heard that the mob was gathering. As I mentioned before, many 
of them were World War I veterans. They loaded up with their weapons 
and went to the courthouse to offer their assistance to the sheriff to 
be an additional armed guard there.
  The sheriff denied it, said they had the situation well in hand, and 
turned the men away. As the mob continued to grow and continued to 
press the sheriff, the men returned and said: You need our help here. 
We do not want a lynch mob in our city. We have all heard what had 
happened in other cities just a year ago. We don't want that happening 
here.
  The sheriff again turned them away and said: You are not needed here; 
we have the situation at hand.
  But as the men left that second time, some White men in the crowd 
confronted some of the African-American men as they left. There was a 
struggle as one of the White men tried to take away the guns from the 
African-American men and a shot was fired.
  The rest of it was chaos. Many of the African-American men headed 
back to the Greenwood District as quickly as they could as that mob 
turned into a riot. They pursued them back to the Greenwood District of 
Tulsa. It was not far away, literally just on the other side of the 
tracks from downtown Tulsa. They pursued them back into the Greenwood 
District and started a massive riot the evening of May 31.
  The police, trying to quell this massive riot that broke out, 
immediately deputized many White men who were gathered around downtown 
Tulsa, gave them weapons, and told them to go arrest as many Black 
people as they could to stop the riot.
  They ran into the Greenwood District and shootings began all over the 
Greenwood area. Many African-American men--the numbers are up over the 
thousands--were arrested, dragged into Tulsa, and were put in temporary 
detention facilities there and held, which left the Greenwood District 
completely unprotected.
  Looters and rioters moved through that part of Tulsa all throughout 
the night and into the next morning, literally looting every home, 
looting every business, doctor's office, grocery store, and department 
store--looting each one of them and burning them to the ground. By the 
time the National Guard arrived the next day to try to stop the riot, 
almost every building, home, and business--everything in a 1-mile 
square that was the Greenwood District before--was completely 
destroyed.
  It makes you wonder what happened then. It is estimated that over 300 
people died that night in Tulsa. No one was ever charged with a crime.
  Dick Rowland, whom I mentioned before, was released from jail because 
no charges were ever pressed against him. Sarah Page never pressed 
charges against him.
  Insurance companies refused to pay the African-American businesses 
that were burned to the ground. They walked away.
  What happened next is even more surprising to me. I am not surprised 
that many African-American individuals who lived in the Greenwood 
District left. I don't blame them, but most everyone stayed. They 
literally rebuilt their homes by living in tents for a year.
  The American Red Cross moved in and helped build wood platforms where 
there used to be homes so that tents could be built in that spot and 
people could live there while they rebuilt their own home and rebuilt 
their own businesses. One by one they rebuilt.
  Mount Zion Baptist Church had just been finished a few months before 
that

[[Page 7154]]

and had a $50,000 mortgage on it. No one walked away from that church. 
They rebuilt that church, and they repaid the $50,000 mortgage that was 
owed from before. Block by block, individuals started rebuilding 
Greenwood.
  By the 1940s, and given all the struggles that had happened, it never 
fully recovered to what it was before. What is also fascinating about 
it is that the State of Oklahoma quietly ignored what happened that 
day. Most folks growing up in Oklahoma have never even heard of the 
Tulsa race riot. In many ways, the Tulsa race riot is kind of like that 
uncle you know in your family who ended up in jail and at Christmas no 
one talks about. Everyone kind of knows they are out there, but you 
never discuss them. That was the Tulsa race riot for Oklahomans for a 
very long time, until just a couple of decades ago, when the 
conversation quietly started again about a very difficult part of our 
history.
  So 95 years ago this week, the worst race riot in American history 
broke out in Tulsa, OK. In 5 years the entire country will pause and 
look at Oklahoma and will ask a very good question: What has changed in 
100 years? What have we learned in 100 years?
  I would say a few things. I would say we can remember. There is great 
honor to be able to say to people: We have not forgotten about what 
happened. We have not ignored it. We have not swept it under the rug 
and pretended it never happened. We remember.
  I think there is great honor in that. We can recognize there is more 
to be done and that we can't just say: You know what; that was then, 
and this is now. There is more to be done.
  Our own racial challenges and what has happened in the country just 
over the past few years remind us again that we don't have legal 
segregation any more, but we still have our own challenges as a nation. 
We still need to have a place in the Nation where every person of every 
background has every opportunity. It is right for us. We can respect 
the men and women who lived, worked, died, and rebuilt. We can pour 
respect on those individuals who are still working to rebuild.
  These are people such as Donna Jackson, who is leading a group that 
she calls the North Tulsa 100 who say that by the time we get to the 
100th anniversary just 5 years from now, there will be 100 new 
businesses in the Greenwood area. The jewel of Black Wall Street was 
the number of businesses, entrepreneurs, and family businesses that 
were there. Donna Jackson and the group that is around her--business 
leaders, church leaders, individuals from the area, family members, and 
some of them even connected to the survivors of the riot itself--are 
all committed to what they can do to reestablish the business community 
again in Greenwood and North Tulsa and not looking just for Black 
businesses, but businesses--period. They wish to reengage a community 
that is still scarred years later and to be able to have some respect 
for those folks who run the cultural center at John Hope Franklin 
Reconciliation Park and the individuals who are willing to talk about 
it in a way that is open, honest, and not accusatory. But my fourth 
``r,'' after remember, recognize and respect, is reconciliation. What 
are we going to do as a nation to make sure that we are reconciled?
  This simple speech on this floor is not going to reconcile our 
Nation. We have for years said this is something we need to talk about. 
Quite frankly, we do need to talk about it, but we also need to do 
something about it. What can we do to make sure that our children do 
not grow up in a nation that forgets its past but also to make sure it 
is not repeated again and to make sure that all individuals are 
recognized and respected and that every person has the same 
opportunity. There is no simple answer, but I bring to this body a 
story that I think is important for us to talk about--the worst race 
riot in American history, in my State, and in all of our States.
  I bring to us a question. Five years from now, we as a nation will 
talk about this even more when it is the 100-year anniversary. Who are 
we as a nation? How far have we come, and what do we have left to do to 
make sure that we really are one Nation under God, indivisible?
  With that, I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank our colleague, the Senator from 
Oklahoma, for telling that marvelous story and offering some hope--not 
just talking about it but doing something about it as well.
  Of course, it reminds me a little bit of our recent trip to 
Charleston and the amazing thing that happened there after a terrible 
tragedy when a young man opened a gun in a church and killed a number 
of innocent people who were there worshipping and who had taken him in.
  Just as the story told by the Senator from Oklahoma, one of the 
things we found when we visited Charleston later, as the Presiding 
Officer will recall, was the power of forgiveness. This changed the 
entire conversation when people in great pain, suffering an unspeakable 
tragedy, had the faith and the fortitude to stand and say: You hurt me, 
but I forgive you.
  It was very, very remarkable. It reminded me of that experience. What 
Senator Lankford was telling us about Tulsa--the Tulsa race riot--
reminded me of the similar lesson and example. There is perhaps nothing 
more powerful than a good example, and we saw that rising out of great 
hurt and great hate.
  I thank the Senator for telling the story and reminding me of that 
recent experience in Charleston.
  Mr. President, sometimes when I go home to Texas, my constituents 
tell me: I don't know how you stand it. I don't know how you stand the 
frustration of working in Washington and dealing with some of the 
politics, the unnecessary obstacles, the procedures, just the delay--
the do-nothing aspects of this job.
  Unfortunately, I was reminded of that again because we are here 
ostensibly working on a national defense authorization bill, burning 
daylight and wasting time when we could actually be dealing with the 
needs of our men and women in uniform--making sure they have the 
equipment, training, and the tools necessary to fight our Nation's wars 
and keep our Nation safe.
  But we are just burning hours on the clock because the Democratic 
leader, in his--I was going to say in his wisdom. I don't think it is 
in his wisdom. I think it is just an effort to delay our ability to 
progress with this important legislation on a bipartisan basis. This is 
legislation, after all, that was supported by every Democrat on the 
Senate Armed Services Committee. They know what is in the bill. It has 
been posted for a long time. Anybody who really cared enough to find 
out could have found out what was in this bill. We could be having a 
debate and a discussion about how we can improve it, about how we can 
reconcile the House and Senate versions and get it to President Obama 
for his signature so our troops don't have to wonder, so they don't 
have to wait, and so they don't have to worry about whether we care 
enough to get our work done to support them.
  Despite all the foot dragging we have seen and the frustrations that 
are just inherent in this job--because things never happen as quickly 
as any of us would like, and I think certainly that adds to the public 
frustration--we actually have been getting some things done around 
here. It is just that we have had to grind them out and take a long 
time do them.
  But I know the majority leader, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, is 
determined to complete this legislation, and we will. In Senator 
McCain, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, we couldn't 
have a more forceful advocate for the men and women in uniform and the 
veterans. Of course, he was a great example of that true American 
hero--a former prisoner of war himself. You can tell how passionately 
he feels about doing our duty by our troops.
  I did want to mention a few things I will be offering by way of 
amendments that I think will help make America safer and take some 
small steps toward

[[Page 7155]]

correcting some of the foreign policy mistakes we have seen from this 
administration over the last few years.
  The first two amendments I intend to offer focus on countering the 
world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism; that is, the nation of 
Iran. The first amendment I have specifically targets an airline called 
Mahan Air, which is that country's largest commercial airline--the 
largest commercial airline and the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. 
This airline has repeatedly played a role in exporting Iran's 
terrorism. It supports the efforts of the Quds Force, an elite fighting 
unit of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and supports Hezbollah as 
well. We might as well call Mahan Air ``Terrorist Airways.'' That might 
be a more appropriate name. Because of its role in ferrying Iranian 
personnel and weapons throughout the region in the Middle East, it 
plays a big hand in undercutting the interests of the United States and 
our ally Israel.
  Of course, everywhere you turn, Iran is up to some sort of mischief--
in Syria, obviously, with their efforts to shore up the corrupt and 
brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad, its support of Hezbollah, Hamas, and 
other terrorist organizations. It seems like everywhere you turn, they 
are up to no good. And, of course, there is the nuclear agreement, 
which I think was enormously misguided, and they have thumbed their 
noses at the very basic elements of that agreement, demonstrating they 
have really no interest in complying with it. And the United States, in 
turn--well, actually the administration; because it is not a treaty, it 
doesn't bind future Presidents--but we have essentially, in the words 
of Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, not contained or prevented Iran 
from gaining nuclear weapons; we have essentially paved the pathway.
  Today, Mahan Air is working to add more international airports to its 
flights, including several in Europe. Given the links to terrorist 
activity, we have to consider the potential security risks to Americans 
and others who fly in and out of airports where Mahan aircraft may 
land.
  This amendment would require the Department of Homeland Security to 
compile and make public a list of airports where Mahan Air flies, and 
it would require the Department of Homeland Security to assess what 
added security measures should be imposed on flights to the United 
States that may be coming from an airport used by Mahan Air.
  I recently had the chance--and I have spoken about this--to go to 
Cairo with the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and 
the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, my friend 
Michael McCaul of Texas. One of the things we looked at was airport 
security because there are flights that currently exist between Cairo 
and JFK Airport in New York. It is my understanding there are also 
flights planned from Cairo to Reagan National here in the District of 
Columbia.
  Following the explosion on a Russian plane out of Sharm el-Sheikh in 
southern Sinai, it is pretty clear Egypt has a lot of work to do to 
improve its homeland security measures in both its screening of baggage 
and also personnel who work at airports.
  So you can see why people would necessarily be concerned about the 
action of Mahan Air and what risk that might expose innocent passengers 
to. I hope my colleagues will review the proposal and support it.
  The second amendment I have related to Iran would require President 
Obama to determine if Iran violated international law several months 
ago when it detained a number of U.S. sailors. Under bedrock rules of 
international law, all ships, including U.S. Navy ships, have the right 
to innocent passage through another nations' territorial waters. In 
other words, when one of our Navy's riverine boats is innocently 
transiting across Iranian waters and is not engaged in military 
activity or taking any other action that would prejudice the peace and 
security of Iran, it is against the law--against the law--for Iran to 
stop, board, and seize that vessel. Iran can't just remove our sailors 
from their boats and detain them in Iran because they feel like it or 
steal the GPS units from those boats.
  In addition, the Geneva Convention makes clear that Iran can't detain 
for no reason and exploit another nation's military servicemembers, 
especially not for propaganda purposes, which is clearly what they did. 
Iran can't force our sailors to apologize when they have done nothing 
wrong. Iran's Revolutionary Guards and their state-controlled media had 
a heyday with the videos and images of our sailors they captured and 
purposely humiliated.
  It seems very likely, based on available evidence, that they violated 
our sailors' rights of innocent passage and very likely the Geneva 
Convention itself, and I think we need the Commander in Chief to call 
Iran into account. This type of destabilizing and dangerous behavior by 
Iran cannot occur without some consequences.
  My amendment would require the President to determine if the rules of 
international law were broken and, if so, require the imposition of 
mandatory sanctions on Iranian personnel who were involved.
  A third amendment I have introduced would grant tax-free income 
status to U.S. troops deployed to the Sinai Peninsula.
  As I have mentioned before, after our trip to Cairo, we flew out to 
North Camp, a peacekeeping mission in the northern part of the Sinai. 
This is an area between the Gaza Strip and Egypt where, as part of the 
peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, negotiated by Prime Minister 
Begin, President Sadat, and President Carter, this peacekeeping 
operation was established. It is called the Multinational Force & 
Observers, and it is largely made up of U.S. military, although it is 
led by a two-star Canadian general and a number of Colombian soldiers 
and others.
  Our troops play a strategic role in maintaining peace between Egypt 
and Israel right there in the northern Sinai, and their work is 
incredibly dangerous. Unfortunately, some Bedouin insurgents have now 
affiliated themselves with ISIS. They have claimed allegiance to the 
Islamic State and are regularly putting out improvised explosive 
devices, which kill Egyptian peacekeepers.
  By granting our troops tax-free status for their pay, we can put them 
on equal footing with other American troops who are deployed in other 
dangerous places, such as Afghanistan and Iraq and other similarly 
dangerous hot spots around the globe.
  Finally, I mentioned earlier this week that I will be submitting an 
amendment to support the human rights of the Vietnamese people. The 
President has been in Hanoi for the last couple of days, but, frankly, 
the conduct of the Communist regime is marked by the regular silencing 
of dissidents and the press and anti-democratic, heavyhanded tactics to 
stay in power at any cost, not to mention the denial of religious 
freedom. By one estimate, Vietnam is currently detaining about 100 
political prisoners.
  Clearly, this country does not come anywhere close to sharing the 
values we have here in the United States, democratic values, and rather 
than steadily improving, I am afraid there is no sign the Vietnamese 
Government is working to advance more freedoms for its people.
  Just this last week, during the visit of President Obama, it was 
reported that several activists who planned on meeting with the 
President were detained by the Communist Party and prevented from doing 
so. Similarly, a BBC correspondent said that the Vietnamese Government 
ordered him to stop his reporting, simply silencing this reporter from 
the BBC. Earlier this month, the wife of a Vietnam activist testified 
before a subcommittee on the House Foreign Affairs Committee about her 
husband, a human rights lawyer, who was beaten by plainclothes officers 
and imprisoned. What was his crime? Well, according to the government, 
he was charged with ``conducting propaganda against the state.'' His 
wife hasn't seen or heard from him in months.
  While I support increased economic and security ties with Vietnam, I 
don't

[[Page 7156]]

believe we should sacrifice our commitment to human rights in the 
process. We should not be seen as tolerating this sort of anti-
democratic behavior. At the very least, we shouldn't be rewarding it 
with new access to arms deals by completely lifting the longtime arms 
embargo against Vietnam. And what did we get in exchange? Well, I think 
it approaches zero or nothing.
  My amendment would help ensure that we don't reward Vietnam for bad 
behavior, such as human rights abuses, when we confer upon them 
benefits, such as lifting the arms embargo, and that they show some 
respect for democratic values, religious liberties, and human rights.
  We have to keep in mind that the Vietnamese people in that country 
have no real voice because they are subjects of a Communist 
dictatorship. We must do more to put pressure on the regime in Hanoi to 
empower their own people.


                 Cross-Border Trade and Enhancement Act

  Separately, Mr. President--and I see my colleague from Wyoming wants 
to speak, so let me conclude with this--earlier today, the Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed legislation I have 
introduced called the Cross-Border Trade and Enhancement Act, a bill 
that would help our ports of entry by strengthening public-private 
partnerships at air, land, and sea ports.
  In Texas, because we share a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, we 
have seen upfront and close the security challenges--which we need to 
do much more to address--but also the benefits of bilateral trade. As a 
matter of fact, trade between the United States and Mexico supports 
about 6 million American jobs.
  We have seen time and time again how important these public-private 
partnerships are in helping to reduce wait times for the flow of 
commerce across the border and moving people and goods across safely 
and efficiently. This isn't just about convenience; this is about 
security and compliance with our laws, interdicting illegal drugs and 
other activities.
  This legislation would also improve staffing, in addition to 
modernizing the infrastructure to help better protect legitimate trade 
and travel and keep our economy running smoothly.
  I thank the chairman, Senator Ron Johnson, for his commitment to this 
issue and commend him for his diligent effort in leading the committee. 
I am glad the committee understands that the priority here is to 
strengthen our ports of entry at the border and across the country.
  I am grateful not only for the committee's support but also the 
bipartisan support of other cosponsors, including Senator Klobuchar, 
the senior Senator from Minnesota, and Senator Heller, the junior 
Senator from Nevada.
  As always, I appreciate my colleague on the House side, Henry 
Cuellar, for working with me on a bipartisan basis and introducing 
companion legislation in the House.
  I hope now that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee has acted, this Chamber will take up the bill soon so we can 
build on the success of similar programs in Texas and across the 
country.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                               ObamaCare

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk once 
again about the health care law.
  This past weekend I was home in Wyoming--as I am just about every 
weekend--visiting a community called Lovell, WY. At Lovell, we had a 
health and fitness fair that was focused on kids and adults in terms of 
prevention of problems and early detection of problems. They could get 
their blood tests done there. In talking to hundreds of people there at 
the hospital, what I heard again and again, as I do each weekend, is 
that this health care law is having a negative impact, a hurtful impact 
on the people of my home State of Wyoming.
  I want to spend a little time today talking about what is happening 
there. On Monday night, Senator Enzi and I had a chance to have a 
telephone townhall meeting. We talked to a lot of people around the 
State, and this continues to come up: the high increases in costs, in 
spite of what the President promised. He promised that insurance rates 
would go down by $2,500 per family if his health care law was passed 
and signed. In fact, the exact opposite has occurred. Today I had lunch 
with a number of students from Lander, WY, in Freemont County, and 
again this came up as a topic of discussion.
  What we see is that the insurance companies at this time of year are 
turning in their rate requests--the requests they have to increase 
their rates for next year.
  I am going to talk about places all over the country now because it 
is not just Wyoming that is suffering under the President's health care 
law, it is all around the country.
  Families in Iowa now know that their insurance company wants to raise 
premiums by as much as 43 percent for some plans. Some families in New 
York have learned that their rates may be going up as much as 46 
percent. Let's turn to New Hampshire. There are families in New 
Hampshire who have gotten the news that they could be paying 45 percent 
more. So when we look State by State by State, what we are seeing 
across the country is rates going up dramatically, impacting the 
ability of people to even afford their insurance.
  A health care group looked at nine States where information has been 
released. They found what they call a standard shopper for insurance. 
The average cost of a silver plan--the most commonly sold plan--will go 
up 16 percent next year. That is for a typical, say, 50-year-old person 
who doesn't smoke. It adds to an average cost of about $6,300 per year 
for that person trying to buy insurance.
  What we are seeing today is more and more people getting sticker 
shock under ObamaCare. The health care law has created so many problems 
for the American public--for taxpayers--because taxes have gone up as a 
result of this for providers of health care and certainly for patients. 
The health care law has caused mandates. It has put restrictions in 
place. It has been made so expensive that most people think it is not a 
good deal for them personally, which is why, in terms of the number of 
people who were uninsured when the law was passed, fewer than one in 
three of them have actually signed up for ObamaCare. That is because 
all these mandates and all these restrictions have made insurance much 
more expensive when it comes down to actually trying to get care.
  Let me point out that the President is very specific when he talks. 
He doesn't talk about people getting care; he talks about coverage.
  The headlines in the New York Times have been that there are a lot of 
people with coverage who can't get care. There was a story last week 
about so many people in New York City who feel that ObamaCare is a 
second-class program. They have that insurance card, but it doesn't 
help them get to see a doctor--certainly not one they want or need for 
the problems they are having.
  Some insurance companies have lost so much money by selling insurance 
on the ObamaCare exchange that they have decided to drop out of the 
exchanges entirely. They said: We are done with it. We can't afford to 
continue to sell it this way.
  We know the insurance company Humana is dropping out of several 
States. We know that UnitedHealthcare is leaving all but a handful of 
States. In Colorado, 20,000 people have received letters saying that 
they are losing their insurance plan next year because companies cannot 
afford to sell it. And it is only going to get worse.
  According to a recent survey by McKinsey & Company, it turns out that 
only one out of every four health insurance companies made a profit 
last year. Those are the ones I am talking about specifically selling 
insurance on the ObamaCare exchange. So one out of four made a profit; 
three out of four lost money. And we say: How is it that they were able 
to make a profit?
  Well, this is what they did: The ones that were able to make a profit 
tended

[[Page 7157]]

to be companies that have a lot of experience offering Medicaid 
insurance. Basically, they took their Medicaid plans and sold them to 
people on the ObamaCare exchange. These are plans with very narrow 
networks of doctors, so you can't just go to any doctor you like, and 
they have very narrow numbers of hospitals, so you can't go to any 
hospital you like. For these specific companies, a lot of these plans 
are ones that have very high deductibles. So somebody may have an 
insurance card, but the deductible is so high--the dollar-for-dollar 
out-of-their-pocket expense--that they say they can't afford to see a 
doctor, and they have ObamaCare, which they are finding is essentially 
useless for them.
  There were different levels of insurance plans that ObamaCare came 
out with--bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Most of the people have 
been choosing the silver plans because that was thought to be sort of 
the midrange plan. Well, now those silver plans are coming with very 
high costs. This means that people may be paying, again, for coverage, 
but they are not getting care.
  There is a company in Virginia. They have decided they are getting 
rid of the bronze plan entirely. They have said ``No, we are not going 
to sell the bronze plan anymore,'' and they are pushing all of their 
customers up into the silver plan. They are doing this, but if you are 
one of the people who had the bronze plan that they are not going to 
sell anymore, you can see your rates going up 70 percent from what you 
were paying this year--an increase of 70 percent. Some of these silver 
plans have gotten so inadequate that they are now what the bronze plans 
used to be. This is all as a result of what the Obama administration 
forced down the throats of the American public and every Democrat voted 
for and every Republican voted against.
  One insurance company is actually offering a silver plan next year 
that comes with a deductible of more than $7,000. Now, that is how much 
someone would need to pay out of their pocket before insurance actually 
kicked in. Blue Cross of Idaho is talking about a deductible of $6,850 
for their silver plan. That is for the silver plan--the one that 
Democrats said was supposed to be the benchmark plan, the one that the 
subsidies are linked to.
  Let's think about what a $6,850 deductible means for most people. 
According to a new poll out by the Associated Press, two-thirds of 
Americans say they would have a hard time actually coming up with 
$1,000 for an emergency. So, then, how are they supposed to come up 
with over $6,800 in case of a situation that they may find confronting 
them?
  These kind of plans, where people pay a lot and don't get much in 
return, are what President Obama and the administration used to call 
``junk insurance.'' I remember the President talking about that. ``Junk 
insurance'' is what he said. He said that the health care law would 
stop that; that would never happen under an Obama administration and an 
Obama plan. Instead, this President, under ObamaCare, is pushing more 
and more people into these kinds of plans, and this administration is 
even subsidizing them.
  So premiums are going through the roof. The deductibles are going up 
so high that people have insurance--which is mandated by law that they 
have--but it turns out that, for many of them, it is useless. People 
may have to find a new primary care doctor or a new pediatrician every 
year because they are getting switched from plan to plan to plan 
because they can't afford the plan that they have, and the rates 
continue to go up. And the President, who had once said ``If you like 
your plan, you can keep it,'' now says ``Oh, no, you had better shop 
around.'' He said that if you like what you have, you can keep it. He 
completely flipped and now says that you had better shop around.
  People continue to lose plans because insurance companies are going 
out of business or they just quit selling insurance entirely. To me, 
this is just one more sign that this health care law is a sinking ship. 
It is falling apart. And insurance companies have found that one reason 
they are losing so much money is that their customers are sicker than 
the President thought they would be and that the insurance companies 
thought they would be. The people who are healthy basically aren't 
interested in buying this very expensive insurance. They feel it is a 
waste of their money and would rather just pay the fine to the IRS.
  On Monday, the head of the State ObamaCare co-op in New Mexico was on 
the television network CNBC, talking about this problem. His name is 
Dr. Martin Hickey, and he is the CEO of New Mexico Health Connections. 
His company is asking to raise premiums for some of its plans by 34 
percent next year. Still, he said, ``With these heavy rate 
increases''--and these are heavy rate increases--``the problem is the 
people who are going to say `for a $695 penalty, to heck with it.''' So 
of the people the President is mandating to buy insurance, many are 
saying, ``to heck with it.'' That is what we hear from this CEO.
  Look, this is just what Republicans have been predicting ever since 
Democrats first brought this health care law to the floor and they 
passed this extraordinarily expensive law and mandates on the American 
public.
  Dr. Hickey, CEO of New Mexico Health Connections, said, ``The healthy 
are abandoning insurance, and what you're left with is the sick, and 
you can never raise your rates high enough.'' That is not what 
Democrats promised. That is not what they stood up here on the floor 
and talked about. They promised--and so did President Obama--that the 
health care rates would go down. They promised insurance coverage would 
get better. It has not. It has gotten much worse. They promised that if 
you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. In many cases, you 
can't. They promised that if you like your insurance, you can keep your 
insurance. In many cases, you cannot.
  People all across this country are getting a reminder of ObamaCare's 
broken promises as the health care requests for increases come out. 
Democrats want to double down on this failed health care law and add 
more mandates and more restrictions. They want more government control 
over people's health care.
  It does seem that everything the Democrats propose just makes prices 
go up faster. That isn't what the American people wanted, and it is 
certainly not what we need from health care reform in this country. 
This law was passed 6 years ago, and it is getting worse every day.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative 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.


                           Our National Debt

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I want the Presiding Officer and my 
colleagues and the people of America to know what is keeping me awake 
nights. It is actually thoughts of my grandkids and their future that 
keep me awake nights. I see a bleak future for them because of our 
overspending, and I hear their small voices saying: You were there. Why 
didn't you fix it? Why didn't you give us the chance you had? We didn't 
want anything for free. We just wanted an opportunity to earn our own 
way to what was the American dream.
  How are we going to answer that question? I am not just asking the 
Members of Congress, I am asking everyone in America because everyone 
has and is getting benefits from this great country at the expense of 
the future.
  Let's look at the problem together. Here is where we are right now 
and where we are headed: Our national debt isn't sustainable because of 
the interest alone. Interest on the debt could mean we would have to 
make cuts to programs we never dreamed of cutting. We already owe 
$1,900 billion. Sometimes that is called $19 trillion. I prefer

[[Page 7158]]

to call it $19,000 billion; it sounds like more. That is soon headed to 
$20,000 billion, or $20 trillion. We have already exceeded that. At 1 
percent interest--and that is interest alone--interest would amount to 
$200 billion a year.
  We need to worry about when the interest rate gets to the norm of 5 
percent, and that could happen as early as in the next 3 years. Imagine 
if the interest rate went to 5 percent; 5 percent is the historic 
average for Federal borrowing. Excluding mandatory spending, we 
currently only get to make decisions on $1,070 billion a year. Do the 
math. Five times $200 billion is $1,000 billion. Remember, we only get 
to make decisions on $1,070 billion a year. So interest alone could 
crowd out almost the entire annual budget. What would that extra $70 
billion fund? When that happens, could we forget about funding defense 
or education or agriculture or any of the other programs we are 
expected to fund?
  What we are doing is not sustainable. What would we be forced to cut 
just to pay the interest? How many people do you think would be willing 
to invest in America just in order to get their own interest paid? The 
answer is no one. Incidentally, we may already be borrowing to pay 
interest, but so far no one knows it--yet.
  From a Bloomberg business article, ``There's an acknowledgement, even 
in the investor community, that monetary policy is kind of running out 
of ammo.'' That was said by Thomas Costerg, the economist at Standard 
Chartered Bank in New York City. A lack of monetary ammo will drive up 
interest rates dramatically, forcing us to pay even more interest on 
our debt. Because we are the largest economy in the world, there isn't 
anyone who could bail us out.
  There are lots of causes to this problem. Let me cover some of them. 
We don't ever look back at what we have done. We keep looking forward 
to new things we would like to do to help everyone out. Every elected 
official has great ideas for something that might make a difference, 
but we don't look to see if it already has a similar program or if what 
we already do in that area is working. In fact, the bills we passed 
don't have enough specificity to know if we are achieving what we hoped 
we would get done.
  Without measurable goals, we can't measure progress. We don't include 
specificity for how we are going to achieve our goals, which allows or 
forces agencies to go where they want to go. We never know if we 
actually solved the problem we started out to solve. For some Federal 
employees, it is important never to get the problem solved as their 
jobs might be eliminated.
  Have you ever had an agency come to you and suggest that their 
mission no longer exists so we should end their funding? Not that I 
know of.
  Once a young man came to me and he said: This will probably cost me 
my job, but what I am doing doesn't have to be done at all. By telling 
you this, I will probably lose my job, but I feel strongly about it.
  I told him he ought to be promoted and worked to have that happen.
  I want to congratulate Senator Grassley for his efforts on 
whistleblower protection so employees can point out problems without 
retaliation. We have regulations that cost jobs and the economy for 
very little value. We have a rule that there has to be a cost-benefit 
analysis for any project over $100 million of impact, but that is 
seldom done, and there are few standards for doing it anyway or 
requirements to actually force it to be done. The benefits might be 
costed over decades while the costs are immediate and continuing.
  If we can improve the private economy by 1 percent, we would increase 
revenue to the Federal Government by $400 billion without raising 
taxes. Instead, we have gone from GDP--that is private sector 
productivity--from 2.7 percent down to 0.5 percent. That is a huge loss 
of tax revenue.
  We have regulations that have been on the books for years that 
haven't been reviewed to see if technology has made them outdated. 
Regulations cost jobs but only in the private sector. When is the last 
time you remember a Federal employee being laid off because of budget 
cuts or ending a program? I know we passed a major education bill here 
recently, and we eliminated the national school board and a lot of the 
national requirements.
  So when we had the new nominee for Secretary of Education, I asked 
him how many jobs that was going to save in the Department of 
Education. He said: Well, none. We are just going to move them around 
and use them in other places. Wrong answer. According to the 
Congressional Budget Office, we saved 237 jobs that will not have 
anything to do.
  There are 96,000 Federal employees in the District alone. What are 
they all doing? An example is a principal who came to see me my first 
year here. He had been filling out Federal reports for a long time, and 
he wondered where they went. So I sent him to the Department of 
Education, and he spent a semester there and followed all those reports 
around. Then he came and reported to me. He said: You know, they really 
look at those carefully. They make sure every single blank is filled 
in. They make sure every single blank has a logical answer. If it 
doesn't, they send it back. They get it back, and they check it over 
again. Then, they file it and nobody ever looks at it.
  I have been trying to get rid of some of those forms since that time.
  How about expired Federal programs? Last year I spoke often about the 
260 programs we still have that expired, but we are still spending 
money on them to the tune of $293\1/2\ billion a year--260 programs 
expired, $293\1/2\ billion paid out to them each year. One of them 
expired in 1983, another one in 1987, and most of them before 2006, and 
we are still giving them money.
  After a year of harping on it, I find that we have reduced the number 
of expired programs from 260 to 256, but we have increased the spending 
on expired programs from $293 billion to $310 billion. That is not 
progress.
  Here is another part of the problem. I have this housing chart. There 
ought to be savings from better organization. We have 20 Federal 
agencies here. Somebody once said that if you take the 26 letters of 
the alphabet and you picked any 3 or any 4 and you put them in any 
order you want to, there would be a Federal agency by that name. We 
have 20 of those right here, and that isn't the whole chart. It would 
take a much bigger chart to show the whole story, because these 20 
Federal agencies oversee 160 housing programs. How many housing 
programs does it take? What are they doing? Could they be combined? We 
don't look at that.
  Wouldn't consolidation of these result in some kind of savings? Maybe 
consolidation would result in some efficiency. Shouldn't all of this be 
controlled by one entity? What are we trying to achieve in housing? Do 
we have 160 different plans and goals? Shouldn't we consider that a 
major economic sector and have that a separate part of our budget? 
Can't some of the programs be combined?
  When I came to the Senate, there were 119 preschool programs for 
children. We all know and acknowledge the value of preschool and how it 
increases their earnings later on and cuts down on the amount of crime 
and helps the economy. We all know and acknowledge that value, but 
Senator Kennedy and I found that many of them have been evolved into 
expensive childcare services rather than education, and they weren't 
meeting their goals. We were able to get those programs down from 119 
to 65. That was all that was in our jurisdiction of Health and 
Education. Later we were able to get some of those others down to 45. 
Two years ago, I got an amendment passed that the programs had to be 
reduced to five and all of them put under the Department of Education. 
Even though that is the law, that hasn't happened yet.
  Does the Federal Government ever take a cut in dollars? We get 
instant complaints if the requested increase is less than what was 
asked for--not less than what they had the year before, less than what 
was asked for. Only in government is that considered a cut. Our budgets 
and spending are set up to allow everyone to get what they got last 
year, plus the amount of inflation. We call it baseline budgeting. Many

[[Page 7159]]

governments have gone to economic sector budgeting under a cap of 
expected revenues. You don't look at what the expected revenues are. 
Some governments only borrow for long-term infrastructure investments. 
We borrow for day-to-day expenses. As I mentioned earlier, we could be 
borrowing to pay our interest on our debt.
  I am not even going to cover the Tax Code that has evolved from 
raising the basic money to run the government to a way to legislate 
social programs or for special benefits to individuals and businesses. 
Our Tax Code is costing us jobs.
  What are some of the other causes of our debt problem? We are really 
good at new and super ideas. Every idea is designed to help out the 
folks back home. They all lend themselves to the greater good, but if 
they aren't paid for, they steal from the future. We found many ways to 
steal from the future. We are spending money that will not be there for 
our kids or our grandkids to spend. As my grandpa would say, it is 
``like milking a cow in a lightning storm, they'll just be left holding 
the bag.''
  We fudge these new ideas into existence. The easiest way is to do a 
demonstration program. Demonstration programs let you ease into the 
spending a little at a time--boil the frog slowly. You just start it in 
a few cities or States to show what a difference that idea would make. 
Demonstration programs are always sold on the basis that a successful 
program will show the local benefit and will be taken up locally 
because they have seen the advantage.
  I am not aware of a single program that hasn't been spectacular. 
Every program works out as planned, except for the part about being 
valuable enough to be adopted and paid for locally. So the need for the 
money to continue to be spent continues and continues. Not only that, 
if it worked so well for the few, it needs to be expanded nationally so 
everyone can benefit. Unfortunately, while there may have been offsets 
for the original programming, there was never a source of ongoing funds 
for the continuance of the program, let alone for its expansion.
  The next way to trick hard-working, tax-paying Americans is to make 
it a mandatory program. Here is a mandatory versus discretionary chart. 
This is the $1,070 billion I talked about that we get to make decisions 
on. These are the mandatory programs that we have, and they are growing 
faster and faster. As the baby boomers kick in, you will see such a 
rapid escalation here that I don't know how we will ever be able to 
afford it.
  Fifty years ago, 30 percent of spending was mandatory. We got to make 
annual decisions on 70 percent of the money. Because of the expansion 
of the mandatory programs, 70 percent of spending is on autopilot and 
funded every year without a vote, and we only get to make decisions on 
30 percent of the money. Some of the mandatory programs used to have 
their own revenue stream, sufficient to cover the amounts paid out. 
Social Security is a prime example. When it was set up, you couldn't 
retire until you were 65, and life expectancy was 59.
  There used to be more people working and paying into Social Security 
than the amount paid out to recipients. When that happened, the excess 
money was spent--yes, spent--and bonds were put in a Social Security 
drawer backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. If 
interest rates go to 5 percent, how well do you think that will work 
out? Pension funds for bankrupt companies of coal miners and the 
Central States multiemployer pension fund are going broke now, not 20 
years, not 30 years, not 40 years in the future. They are going broke 
now. But they are a symptom of what we are about to face.
  People are talking about Puerto Rico and how they need a bailout. Who 
would bail out the United States? Who would have enough money to do 
that? We go to mandatory programs, so we don't have to figure out how 
to pay for programs. It continues without further votes or review. 
Everyone wants their favorite program to have dedicated funds, except 
we don't dedicate funds to it and we ran out of real money. Mandatory 
spending used to mean that there was a dedicated stream of money 
sufficient to cover the cost of the program without dipping into the 
general fund.
  Here is a chart that shows how we are doing on that score. Let's see. 
Here is dedicated income as a percent of spending for 2015--actual--and 
income covered just 51 percent of spending. In 2016, we only covered 49 
percent, and in 2017, it might bump back up to 50 percent. Where does 
the other 50 percent come from? It either has to be stolen from the 
future or taken from the present, which means that less can be done 
under the regular budget.
  Another funding trick that we use is to allocate funds from the 
future to spend in the present. We take funds from up to 10 years out. 
We imagine that they already came in and sometimes we spend them in 1 
year. That is borrowing from the future. That is borrowing money that 
our kids will need for the dreams they have for their kids and America.
  That brings me to emergency spending. Any event that can be 
considered a crisis can be considered for emergency spending. 
Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and even failures by 
Federal agencies can be considered emergencies.
  In earlier years when I looked at emergencies, it looked to me like 
we spent about $6 billion a year on emergencies. Recently, I decided I 
needed to have that figure checked. To my surprise, I found out that we 
have $26 billion a year in emergencies that is unpaid for and will be 
borrowed from the future or borrowed on the debt. This little chart 
points that out. We are billing an average of $26 billion for 
emergencies.
  Anytime you know you are going to have some expense every year, maybe 
that ought to be a part of the budget. Maybe we ought to plan on it. 
Maybe we ought to figure out how we are going to pay for it.
  What are you going to tell your grandkids you did to give them 
opportunities? Do you want to be here to answer that question when 
Social Security is cut by 20 percent to fund defense because interest 
payments have used up all of the money we get to make decisions on? Can 
we consolidate programs? Can we be sure they have measurable goals and 
hold them to achievement? Can we watch regulation to see that it 
achieves its goal with a minimum of jobs lost? Can we review old 
programs for elimination or consolidation when we look at new ideas? 
Can we find ways to fund our ideas without stealing from the future? 
How will you answer to your grandkids for what you have done?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.


                 Gun Violence and Mental Health Reform

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, about a week ago, Josh Cortez was found 
shot and lying on the pavement in Hartford's South end. Josh was 22 at 
the time. His girlfriend, who was 23 years old, was found in a parked 
car nearby with a gunshot wound. She was rushed to Hartford Hospital 
where she died a half hour later. They were the sixth and seventh 
homicide victims in Hartford this year.
  They had been dating for about 2 years, and they had a 2-year-old 
daughter. He had just celebrated his 22nd birthday. His cousin said:

       [Josh] was a great kid. He turned his life around for the 
     better. He had a rough start, but he was doing a complete 360 
     for his baby girl.

  His cousin said that he was just wrapping up a jail diversionary 
program at the time of his death and that he was ``committed to the 
program,'' making every appointment and following every regulation.
  Two days later, across the country in Iowa, Senquez Jackson was 15 
years old when his 13-year-old friend accidentally fired a small .38-
caliber semiautomatic pistol. His friend thought the gun was unloaded 
when he pulled the ammo clip from the handle. He killed his friend, 
Senquez, who was 15 years old, and now that 13-year-old boy has been 
charged with involuntary manslaughter. In addition, they layered on

[[Page 7160]]

charges of obstructing prosecution and carrying a weapon.
  Senquez is remembered by his friends and family as being a great 
athlete. He loved basketball. He dreamed of playing in the NBA. He 
always told his auntie that he was going to be just like LeBron James.
  One speaker at his funeral said that they had never met another child 
with more gratitude than Senquez. He had deep gratitude for the things 
he had been given. He died from an accidental gunshot wound on March 
18.
  Earlier in the year, Romell Jones was standing outside the Alton 
Acres housing complex with a group of kids his age in Alton, IL. He was 
11 years old. They were waiting to get picked up to go to basketball 
practice. While they were waiting outside, a red car pulled up and 
someone inside the car fired multiple shots into this group of kids, 
and Romell was killed.
  His friends remember him--frankly, like Senquez--as always having a 
basketball in his hands. The middle school coach, Bobby Everage, who 
was planning on coaching this incredibly talented kid, said:

       This young man's life was cut short and he had so much 
     potential. I know he was a good kid and has a lot of friends. 
     When life ends that way, it is so sad.

  His fifth grade teacher said that Romell was well liked by all of his 
teachers and all of his classmates.

       He was always happy, sensitive, and an excellent student. 
     As a fifth grader he mentored younger students at our school.

  He was only 11 years old when he was killed while waiting to go to 
basketball practice.
  At the end of last year--this is a story I pulled out of the dozens 
that were killed in Connecticut cities--Antoine Heath was 29 years old 
when he was shot in the chest while sitting in a parked car on the 
outskirts of Edgewood Park in New Haven. His wife of 4 years and mother 
of his two children, ages 4 and 3, said that her husband was a family 
man. ``He was loving and hard working.''
  Antoine's nickname was ``Champ,'' in large part because he was such a 
champion of causes in and around his community. A childhood friend 
said:

       He tried to get me to see things clear. He made sure 
     everybody was all right. He just wanted his family to be 
     together.

  He had big plans for the weekend just following his death. He was 
going to be baptized. His sister said:

       He was ready to give his life over to God, and he made the 
     decision on his own. That was something he wanted to surprise 
     the family and do.

  Those are just four stories--four voices--of victims of gun violence. 
As the Presiding Officer and many of my colleagues know, I try to come 
to the floor every week or couple of weeks to tell a handful of stories 
of the 31,000 a year, 2,600 a month, and 86 people a day who are killed 
by guns, resulting from a variety of reasons. Most of these are 
suicides, many of them accidental. They happen in large numbers and 
small. Last year we had 372 mass shootings, which I categorize as 4 or 
more people being shot at any one time. Many of these are domestic 
violence incidents or gang-involved incidents. There are a lot of 
different stories as to why this happens.
  I come to the floor to talk for a moment today on a specific aspect 
of our path forward on addressing gun violence. Tomorrow Senator 
Cassidy and I will host a summit here in Washington on mental health 
reform. Senator Cassidy and I, with the help of 16 of our colleagues--
eight Democrats and eight Republicans--have introduced a bipartisan 
comprehensive mental health reform act that we think, if it passes, 
will dramatically improve the experiences of individuals who are trying 
to seek help for their mental illness.
  Given the fact that we are going to have hundreds of people at this 
summit tomorrow, that many of us are living with the daily 
ramifications of unchecked gun violence, and that we are continuing to 
press for legislation on this floor--as I know the Presiding Officer 
is--I want to talk about the mistakes I think we make in how we talk 
about the intersection between mental health and the epidemic of gun 
violence.
  I will talk about it for a second through the lens of Sandy Hook. On 
the same day that Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School 
and murdered 26 children and educators, another mentally ill man in 
Henan, China, walked into a school and attacked 22 students--almost the 
same number. Now, in Sandy Hook, every single child who Adam Lanza 
fired a bullet at and hit died. In China, every single student 
survived. Both assailants were unquestionably deeply mentally ill, but 
only one incident resulted in a worldwide tragedy. The difference is 
that Adam Lanza walked into that school with a semiautomatic rifle, and 
the attacker in China walked into that school with a knife.
  Our Nation has seen the horror that unfolds when mental illness and 
gun violence intersect in devastating ways and the cycles of shock, 
despair, horror, and grief that accompany mass shootings are still a 
uniquely American routine. We can't fathom what would drive someone to 
commit such horrifying acts. It is easy for society to blame that 
shooting in Newtown or in Aurora or wherever the next one may be on the 
mental illness. If we truly want to stop these mass shootings and do 
something about the 86 people who are murdered every day, we have to 
stop ourselves for a second and ask why this epidemic of gun violence 
doesn't happen in any other industrialized country the way it happens 
here. We have to ask ourselves: Is it because more Americans suffer 
from mental illness? No, the statistics don't tell us that. Is it 
because the mentally ill in America are more violent than the mentally 
ill in a place like Europe? No, the data doesn't tell us that. Do other 
countries spend more money on treating mental illness than the United 
States does? Is it that their systems are more adequate than ours? No, 
the data doesn't tell us that either.
  What is the difference between the United States and every other 
developed nation? Why is our gun homicide rate 20 times higher than the 
average OECD nation? Why don't other countries that experience the same 
level of mental illness and spend the same amount of money treating it 
have a comparable number of shootings--mass and individual shootings? 
Well, one of the differences is guns. The difference is that in America 
we are awash in illegal guns--high-power military-style assault 
firearms that are designed to kill as many people as quickly as 
possible. The reality is that whoever shot that couple in Hartford or 
that father New Haven didn't have to try very hard to find a weapon. It 
was either in their house or around the corner or at a friend's 
apartment.
  There are a lot of people who would like to very easily conflate the 
conversation about gun violence with the conversation about fixing our 
mental health system. Let's just think about two States: Wisconsin and 
Wyoming. These are States that have very similar mental health systems 
and spend the same amount of money. Yet one State, Wyoming, has a gun 
homicide rate that is twice that of Wisconsin. There is no data that 
suggests that mental illness explains the difference between those two 
States, just like there is no evidence that mental illness explains the 
difference between two countries.
  This argument about an inadequate mental health system being the 
reason for epidemic rates of gun violence has become a very convenient 
political fate that is perpetrated by people who don't want to get to 
the question of whether our gun laws have something to do with these 
epidemic murder rates.
  There is no doubt that the mental health system in this country is 
broken. It is dramatically under-resourced. People have to wait for 
months to get an outpatient appointment. We have closed down 4,000 
mental health inpatient beds in this country just in the last 5 years 
alone. It is ridiculously uncoordinated. We have built up a system in 
which your body from the neck down is treated in one system, and then 
you have to drive two towns over if you want to get treatment for your 
body from the neck up. People with mental illness die 20 years earlier 
than people without mental illness because those two systems are not 
coordinated.

[[Page 7161]]

  The stigma around mental illness is still crippling. I know we passed 
a law that requires insurance companies to say on your statement of 
benefits that you have coverage for mental illness. Everybody knows 
that when you actually try to access those benefits, bureaucrats put up 
bureaucratic hurdles in front of your actually getting reimbursed for 
mental health care that they never would if you were trying to get 
reimbursed for a broken leg or heart surgery.
  Now, fortunately, the Mental Health Reform Act, which this summit 
will cover tomorrow, really does start to unlock many of these most 
difficult problems. The Mental Health Reform Act will properly 
capitalize our mental health system by putting back into it funding for 
inpatient beds and starting to marry the physical health system with 
the mental health system. It attacks this stigma by requiring insurance 
companies to administer benefits in the spirit of parity and not just 
say that you have a mental health benefit. It invests in prevention and 
early intervention and treatments so that we are not just hitting the 
problem at the back end. It gets into tough issues, like how our HIPAA 
laws unfortunately stand in the way of caregivers actually being part 
of the treatment plan for their seriously mentally ill young adults.
  The Mental Health Reform Act is a path forward to fixing our broken 
mental health system. But pretending that mental health reform is a 
sufficient response to gun violence is not only wrongheaded, it is also 
dangerous because the facts are incontrovertible that individuals 
coping with serious mental illness commit less than 5 percent of all 
violent acts in this country.
  Let me say that again. People with mental illness commit less than 5 
percent of all violent acts in this country. They are frankly far more 
likely to be the victims of gun violence than they are to be the 
perpetrators of it.
  Obviously, people like Adam Lanza, Jared Lee Loughner, and James 
Holmes had complicated and devastating behavioral health disorders. 
There are Adam Lanzas, Jared Loughners, and James Holmeses in every 
other country in the world, but in these other societies mental illness 
doesn't lead to mass murder. Something is different in America such 
that people who are coping with mental illness turn to a weapon. This 
celebratory culture of firearms and violence, this easy access to 
weapons of war that enable men and women with a severe mental illness 
to instantly transform themselves into mass murderers is unique in this 
country.
  Even if Congress passed a bill today that magically eliminated all 
mental illness in the United States, our country would still have more 
gun violence and shooting deaths than any other country in the 
developed world. Given that only 5 percent of these crimes are 
perpetrated by people with severe mental illness, curing mental illness 
would be a remarkable achievement, but it wouldn't solve this problem.
  It is even worse than that because draping the scourge of gun deaths 
around the necks of everyday Americans who are struggling with mental 
illness just increases the stigma I was talking about that surrounds 
disorders of the mind. Scapegoating the 44 million Americans with 
mental illness just reinforces the idea that they should be feared 
rather than treated.
  We have a mental health crisis in this Nation, and we have a gun 
violence crisis as well. These two epidemics overlap--there is no doubt 
about that--but solving one, the mental health epidemic, doesn't solve 
the other. And conflating mental illness and gun violence may serve the 
political ends of those who don't want to have a conversation on this 
floor about background checks or assault weapons or more resources for 
the ATF, but it is not going to make America any demonstrably safer.
  I think this is a very important conversation to have, and I don't 
want to shy away from these intersections that exist, but I want to get 
it right. In the end, I want this body to commit itself to solving our 
mental health crisis and then doing what is additionally necessary to 
do something about the 31,000 a year, 2,600 a month, and the 86 a day 
who are killed by guns in this country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, while the Senator from Connecticut is 
still here, I want say through the Chair that I am glad I had a chance 
to hear his remarks. I agree with him that there is a mental health 
crisis, and I congratulate him for his leadership, especially with the 
Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Cassidy, in focusing the Senate's attention 
on dealing with it this year. I think he has a very passionate and 
practical way of making the argument that while there may not be a 
consensus on what we do about guns, there is a consensus, I believe, in 
this body on what we do about mental health or at least an important 
step in the direction of dealing with the crisis. If we are able to do 
it, Senator Murphy, Senator Cassidy, and Senator Murray, the ranking 
Democrat on the HELP committee, will deserve great credit for that 
happening. I plan to attend for a while the summit tomorrow that 
Senators Murphy and Cassidy are hosting. It will help to draw attention 
to the efforts that the Senators made.
  Last year the full Senate passed the Mental Health Improvement Act. 
This year, working with the Senators from Connecticut and Louisiana, 
and the Senator from Washington, Senator Murray, we have incorporated 
that into the Mental Health Reform Act. We are very hopeful we can pass 
that legislation on the Senate floor in June and work with the House to 
turn it into a law this year.
  No doubt we will have more to do on the mental health crisis after 
that, and we will have more debates on this floor about what the 
Senator from Connecticut calls the gun crisis. But there is no reason 
we cannot move ahead with what we already have a consensus on in mental 
health. I am committed, as I know Senator Murray is, and so are other 
Members on this side of the aisle. I know that Senator Blunt from 
Missouri feels passionate about mental health needs. Senator Cornyn is 
working on helping us resolve this legislation. And Senator McConnell 
has said that if we can find a consensus among ourselves and reduce the 
amount of time it takes to put it on the floor, he will interrupt the 
appropriations process, put it on the floor, and try to get a result 
this year.
  So I am glad I had a chance to hear the Senator. I pledge to continue 
to work with him to get a result on the Mental Health Reform Act that 
he has played such a key role in fashioning.


                     21st Century Cures Legislation

  Mr. President, I would like to speak on another issue that the 
Senator from Connecticut has also played a role in because he is an 
important Member of the HELP committee in the Senate, and that is what 
we call the 21st Century Cures legislation. This legislation, in which 
President Obama is interested and which we have mostly finished in 
terms of our committee work in the Senate, has already passed the 
House.
  A little over a week ago, the New York Times Magazine published a 
special health issue on the new frontier in cancer treatment--how 
doctors and researchers are trying new tips, new drugs, even new ways 
of thinking about cancer. This month the photographer Brandon Stanton, 
who documents the stories of ordinary people in his popular photography 
blog, ``Humans of New York,'' turned his lens on the pediatrics 
department of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City 
to help raise money for cancer treatment and the research hospital 
there.
  Also this month, two former U.S. Senators, both of them physicians 
and one a cancer survivor--Dr. Bill Frist and Dr. Tom Coburn--wrote an 
op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about what the Senate is doing to help 
bring safe treatments and cures to doctors' offices, patients, and 
medicine cabinets more quickly.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
the op-ed by Dr. Frist and Dr. Coburn at the conclusion of my remarks.
  In the New York Times Magazine issue, one oncologist writes:


[[Page 7162]]

       [For patients] for whom the usual treatments fail to work, 
     oncologists must use their knowledge, wit and imagination to 
     devise individualized therapies. Increasingly, we are 
     approaching each patient as a unique problem to solve. Toxic, 
     indiscriminate, cell-killing drugs have given way to nimbler, 
     finer-fingered molecules that can activate or deactivate 
     complex pathways in cells, cut off growth factors, accelerate 
     or decelerate the immune response or choke the supply of 
     nutrients or oxygen. More and more, we must come up with ways 
     to use drugs as precision tools to jam cogs and turn off 
     selective switches in particular cancer cells. Trained to 
     follow rules, oncologists are now being asked to reinvent 
     them.

  The article continues:

       Cancer--and its treatment--once seemed simpler. . . . A 
     breakthrough came in the 2000s, soon after the Human Genome 
     Project, when scientists learned to sequence the genomes of 
     cancer cells.
       Gene sequencing allows us to identify the genetic changes 
     that are particular to a given cancer. We can use that 
     information to guide cancer treatment--in effect, matching 
     the treatment to an individual patient's cancer.

  In another Times story, the reporter writes:

       Today, a better understanding of cancer's workings is 
     transforming treatment, as oncologists learn to attack tumors 
     not according to their place of origin but by the mutations 
     that drive them. The dream is to go much deeper, to give an 
     oncologist a listing of all a tumor's key mutations and their 
     biological significance, making it possible to put aside the 
     rough typology that currently reigns and understand each 
     patient's personal cancer. Every patient, in this future 
     situation, could then be matched to the ideal treatment and, 
     with luck, all responses would be exceptional.
       This idea, more broadly, has been called precision 
     medicine: the hope that doctors will be able to come to a far 
     more exact understanding of each patient's disease, informed 
     by genetics, and treat it accordingly.

  I am here today to insert these important stories from the New York 
Times Magazine, the ``Humans of New York'' blog, and Drs. Frist and 
Coburn's Wall Street Journal op-ed into the Record and to remind 
everyone that this year the Senate HELP Committee has passed 19 
bipartisan bills that will help drive medical innovation. I am working 
today with Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the senior Democrat on 
the committee, on an agreement that will give the National Institutes 
of Health a surge of funding for the President's Precision Medicine 
Initiative, which will map 1 million genomes and give researchers a 
giant boost in their efforts to tailor treatments to a patient's 
individual genome. It will also provide funding for the Cancer 
MoonShot, which the Vice President is heading, to try to set us on a 
faster course to a cure.
  To raise money for cancer researchers at Sloan Kettering, Bradley 
Stanton used photos on his ``Humans of New York'' blog, Facebook, and 
Instagram accounts. He writes: ``The study of rare cancers involves 
small and relentless teams of researchers. Lifesaving breakthroughs are 
made on very tight budgets. So your donations will make a difference. 
They may save a life.''
  The fundraiser wrapped up this past weekend. More than 103,000 people 
donated more than $3.8 million to help fight pediatric cancer. More 
than $1 million was donated in the last day of the campaign in honor of 
a young boy named Max to help research and cure DIPG, the brain tumor 
that ended his short life.
  Stanton shared photos and stories of Sloan Kettering patients and 
their parents, as well as the doctors and researchers working to treat 
and cure them--many stories hopeful, all difficult to read. As Stanton 
put it: ``These are war stories.''
  In one post, a researcher at the pediatric center says:

       In the movies, scientists are portrayed as having a 
     ``eureka moment''--that singular moment in time when their 
     faces change and they find an answer. . . . [I]t's hard to 
     say what a ``eureka moment'' would look like in my research. 
     Maybe it's when I'm finally able to look patients and parents 
     in the eye and say with confidence that we have what's needed 
     to cure them.

  In another, a doctor at the center says:

       It's been twelve hours a day, six days a week, for the last 
     thirty years. My goal during all these years was to help all 
     I could help. I've given 200%. I've given transplants to over 
     1200 kids. I've published as many papers as I could. . . . 
     But now I'm almost finished. It's time for the young people 
     out there to finish the job. They're going to be smarter than 
     us. They'll know more. They're going to unzip the DNA and 
     find the typo. They're going to invent targeted therapies so 
     we don't have to use all this radiation.

  How do we make good on these dollars? How do we ensure that these 
remarkable new discoveries of targeted therapies are able to reach the 
patients that need to be reached?
  We must give the Food and Drug Administration the tools and the 
authority it needs to review these innovations and ensure that they are 
safe and effective, that they get to the patients who need them in a 
timely way. That is exactly the goal of our Senate Cures Initiative 
that I am committed to seeing through to a result.
  Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health--
he calls it the National Institutes of Hope--a Federal agency that this 
year funds $32 billion in biomedical research, offered what he called 
``bold predictions'' in a Senate hearing last month about major 
advances to expect if there is sustained commitment to such research.
  Listen to what he said. One prediction is that science will find ways 
to identify Alzheimer's before symptoms appear, as well as how to slow 
or even prevent the disease. Today, Alzheimer's causes untold family 
grief. It cost $236 billion a year. Left unchecked, the cost in 2050 
would be more than our Nation spends on national defense.
  Dr. Collins' other predictions are equally breathtaking. Using 
pluripotent stem cells, doctors could use a patient's own cells to 
rebuild his or her heart. This personalized rebuilt heart, Dr. Collins 
said, would make transplant waiting lists and anti-rejection drugs 
obsolete.
  I had a phone call from Doug Oliver in Nashville, 54 years old, a 
medical technician. Vanderbilt Eye Institute pronounced him legally 
blind. They said: No treatment, no cure, but check the Internet. Last 
August, he went to Florida for a clinical trial. The doctors took cells 
from his hip bone using an FDA-cleared device, put them through a 
centrifuge, and injected them into both eyes. Within 2 days, he was 
beginning to see. He now has his driver's license back. He is ready to 
go back to work.
  He is sending us emails about our legislation urging us to pass it 
and give more Americans a chance to have the kinds of treatments he had 
that have restored his sight.
  Continuing with Dr. Collins' predictions for the next 10 years, he 
expects the development of an artificial pancreas to help diabetes 
patients by tracking blood glucose levels and by creating precise doses 
of insulin.
  He said that a Zika vaccine should be widely available by 2018 and a 
universal flu vaccine--flu killed 30,000 people last year--and an HIV/
AIDS vaccine available within a decade.
  Dr. Collins said that to relieve suffering and deal with the epidemic 
of opioid addiction that led to 28,000 overdose deaths in America in 
2014, there will be new nonaddictive medicines to manage pain.
  Our Senate HELP Committee has approved 50 bipartisan strategies 
designed to make predictions like these of Dr. Collins come true. These 
include faster approval of breakthrough medical devices, such as the 
highly successful breakthrough path for medicines enacted in 2012, and 
making the problem-plagued electronic health records system 
interoperable and less burdensome for doctors and more available to 
patients. We would make it easier for the National Institutes of Health 
and the Food and Drug Administration to hire the experts needed to 
supervise research and evaluate safety and effectiveness. We approved 
measures to target rare diseases and runaway superbugs that resist 
antibiotics.
  As Drs. Frist and Coburn--the former Senators--wrote in their Wall 
Street Journal op-ed that this 21st century cures legislation ``touches 
every American'' and that ``[m]illions of patients and the medical 
community are counting on Congress.''
  The House has already passed by a vote of 344 to 77 companion 
legislation called 21st century cures, including a surge of funding for 
the National Institutes of Health. The President has his

[[Page 7163]]

Precision Medicine Initiative. The Vice President started his Moonshot 
to cure cancer. The Senate HELP Committee has passed 19 bipartisan 
bills, as I said, either unanimously or by a wide margin.
  There is no excuse whatsoever for us not to get a result this year. 
It would be extraordinarily disappointing to millions of Americans if 
we did not. If the Senate finishes its work and passes these bipartisan 
biomedical innovation bills, as well as a surge of funding for the 
National Institutes of Health, and takes advantage of these 
advancements in science, we can help more patients live longer and 
healthier lives and help more researchers who want to look the parent 
of a small child in the eye and say: We found a cure.
  I notice that the Senator from Pennsylvania has come to the floor. I 
am ready to yield my time, but before I do--and I see the Senator from 
Missouri as well--before I do, I want to say of both of them, the 
Senator from Pennsylvania has been a critical component of the 21st 
century cures committee work in the Senate. Several of the 19 bills 
that our committee approved were sponsored by him. I thank him for his 
work. The Senator from Missouri--I spoke a little earlier about the 
mental health focus and consensus that we are developing and how we 
hope to get a result this year on mental health in the Senate, as well 
as 21st century cures. The Senator from Missouri has been key in both 
of them. Last year, working with Senator Murray, he was the principal 
architect of a boost of $2 billion in funding to the National 
Institutes of Health. This year, he is pushing hard for advances in 
mental health. So with this kind of bipartisan cooperation, we ought to 
be able to get a result in June or early July, and I am pledged to try 
to do that.
  I yield the floor.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Wall Street Journal, May 11, 2016]

                 Streamlining Medicine and Saving Lives

                      (By Bill Frist & Tom Coburn)

       As doctors, patients and former U.S. senators, we've seen 
     firsthand how medical innovation benefits patients. Those on 
     our operating tables and in our practices--and we ourselves 
     when we've needed medical care--have benefited from 
     breakthroughs in science and newly approved treatments that 
     translate into better health and longer lives.
       Yet, tragically, millions of Americans are still suffering 
     and dying from untreatable diseases or the lack of better 
     treatment options. Now is the time to pass legislation that 
     we know will safely speed treatments to patients in need. 
     Lives are at stake.
       Before the Senate is a powerful medical-innovation package 
     of 19 bills--a companion to the House-approved 21st Century 
     Cures Act--that will streamline the nation's regulatory 
     process for the discovery, development and delivery of safe 
     and effective drugs and devices, bringing the process into 
     the new century.
       Today, researchers and developers spend as much as $2 
     billion to bring a new drug or therapy to market and the 
     regulatory process can take more than 10 years. That's too 
     long and too expensive for the five million Americans 
     suffering from Alzheimer's; the 1.6 million who will be 
     diagnosed with cancer this year; the 60,000 Americans with 
     Parkinson's; and the nearly 800,000 people who die from heart 
     disease each year.
       This legislation, crafted by the Senate's Health, 
     Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, touches every 
     American. Each of us has personal health battles or knows 
     family members and friends who are fighting against 
     devastating diseases. Passing this package will help ensure 
     that patients' perspectives are integrated into the drug-
     development and approval process and speed up the development 
     of new antibiotics and treatments for those who need them 
     most. It will also give a big boost to President Obama's 
     cancer ``moonshot'' and his Precision Medicine Initiative, 
     which will map one million genomes and help researchers 
     develop treatments for diseases more quickly.
       The U.S. has invested more than $30 billion in electronic 
     health records over the past six years. Yet the majority of 
     systems still are not able to routinely exchange patient 
     information. This legislation will improve interoperability 
     and electronic-information sharing across health-care 
     systems, playing a fundamental role in improving the cost, 
     quality and outcome of care. It encourages the adoption of a 
     common set of standards to improve information sharing. It 
     also allows patients easier access to their own health 
     records and makes those records more accessible to a 
     patient's entire health team so they can collaborate on 
     treatment decisions.
       The legislation will also improve the Food and Drug 
     Administration's ability to hire and retain top scientific 
     talent, which is vital to accelerating safe and effective 
     treatments and cures. Additional provisions in the bills will 
     improve the timeliness and effectiveness of processes for 
     developing important combination products, such as a heart 
     stent that releases medication into the body.
       Alzheimer's is already the most expensive disease in 
     America, and the number of people diagnosed with this 
     debilitating neurological condition is expected to nearly 
     triple to 13.8 million by 2050. This legislation will help 
     advance our understanding of neurological diseases and give 
     researchers access to more data so they can discover new 
     therapies and cures--giving families hope for the future.
       Collectively, these 19 bills are expected to deliver new, 
     safe and effective treatments. Any political impediments to 
     this should be overcome immediately. We believe, along with 
     patients, providers, innovators and policy makers, that the 
     nation's current process for developing and delivering drugs 
     and devices to cure life-threatening diseases must change.
       Millions of patients and the medical community are counting 
     on Congress to help make that change. After 10 committee 
     hearings and more than a year's work crafting bipartisan 
     legislation, it's time for a Senate vote.
       American lives depend on it.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I mentioned what incredible leadership Mr. 
Alexander, the Senator from Tennessee, provides on these issues. I was 
pleased, as he was pleased, and I know the Presiding Officer was also, 
that last year, for the first time in 12 years, we were able to have an 
increase in NIH research.
  The future statistics that the Senator from Tennessee talked about on 
Alzheimer's and other things can be disrupted. In fact, that 2050 
number of twice the defense budget spent on Alzheimer's alone with tax 
money--if you could delay the onset of Alzheimer's by an average of 5 
years, you would reduce that number by 42 percent. So those research 
dollars not only have the impact we want to have on families and the 
individuals involved in that and other diseases we are dealing with now 
but also have an incredible impact on taxpayers, have an incredible 
impact on what we can do with the rest of the health care revolution 
that is occurring.
  The mental health effort the Senator from Michigan, Ms. Stabenow, and 
I were able to work on together a few years ago is about to produce at 
least eight States--and hopefully more--where, at the right kinds of 
facilities, mental health will be treated just like all other health.
  This Congress is talking about doing the right things. We are making 
important steps in that direction.
  Mr. President, I want to talk today about another thing that really 
impacts families--in this case, military families. I have this bill on 
my desk, the National Defense Authorization Act. I notice it is only on 
the desk of half of the Members of the Senate. Members on this side of 
the floor are ready to get to this bill and get this work done. Maybe 
there is a message on the other side of the floor that this bill is not 
there. We had hoped to get to it this week. We have not yet. But 
certainly we should get to it as soon as we return to our work after 
the end of this week.
  In the National Defense Authorization Act--I am really glad that bill 
includes the Military Family Stability Act, a measure that I introduced 
with Senator Gillibrand to provide more flexibility for military 
families. Today we have the most powerful military in the world, but we 
also recognize that our military men and women do not serve alone. The 
former Chief of Staff of the Army, GEN Ray Odierno, often said that the 
strength of our Nation is in our military, but the strength of our 
military is in its families. So our military families need to be 
understood, recognized, appreciated, helped.
  Those families have changed a lot over the years. They have 
sacrificed much. In the last 15 years, those families have dealt with 
persistent conflicts somewhere in the world and the likelihood of 
deployment to that conflict. But more importantly, the stress that puts 
on those families generally is what matters to them--maybe not

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more importantly in the greater context of what is going on but very 
important to them.
  More military spouses are working today than ever before. In the 
world we live in today, this is good news. But all too often, military 
spouses sacrifice their own careers to meet the needs of the spouse who 
is in the service. Frequent redeployments, frequent deployments, and 
frequent relocations really have an impact on those careers.
  According to a study done by the Military Officers Association of 
America, 90 percent of military spouses--that is more than 600,000 men 
and women--are either unemployed or underemployed. More than half cite 
the concerns about their spouse's service and the deterrent of moving 
from job to job--a deterrent not only for employers but a deterrent in 
that they sometimes have a hard time having the kind of recognition for 
the skills they bring to a new State or a new location that they need.
  It is unfair to our military families for the spouse to needlessly 
have problems that could be avoided. Clearly, if you decide to pursue a 
military career--and that, by necessity, means relocation from time to 
time--this is not going to be the same career as if you went to work 
and you had every likelihood that you would work there for the next 
several years.
  These frequent and sometimes abrupt relocations take a heavy toll on 
students as well. Research shows that students who move at least six 
times between the 1st and 12th grades are 35 percent more likely to 
fail a grade. I am not sure that exact research applies to military 
families. That is an overall number of what happens when people move. 
But the average military family will move six to nine times during a 
child's time in school--three times more often than the nonmilitary 
family.
  These relocations of military families means that we need to find a 
better way to deal with those challenges for working families, and the 
Military Family Stability Act does that. The costs of needlessly 
maintaining two residences so that someone can finish school or someone 
can complete a job are the kinds of things that this act and this 
inclusion in the National Defense Authorization Act gives us a chance 
to deal with in a different way. It would allow families to either stay 
at the current duty station for up to 6 months longer than they 
otherwise would be able to stay or to leave and go to a new location 
sooner.
  This probably is most easily understood in the context of school. If 
you only have a month left in school and your family could stay there 
while the person serving in the military goes ahead to the next post 
and is responsible for their own housing during the time they are there 
as a single serving individual--often they are going to find space 
available on the post itself for one person while the family stays 
until that school year works out better.
  A job could be the same. One person we had who came and testified--
Mia, who now lives in Rolla, MO--is married to a soldier who was being 
reassigned from Hawaii to Fort Leonard Wood, MO. That reassignment was 
supposed to occur in June, so she applied for a Ph.D. program at St. 
Louis University that would begin in August. She applied for a teaching 
position at Missouri Science and Technology at Rolla that would begin 
in August. Then her husband's transfer did not happen in June and it 
did not happen in July, but she needed to be there in August.
  Under this change, moving the family household could easily occur in 
August and her husband could follow in October, as he did, but all of 
the expense of her going early was on her. She really had two options: 
One was to not pursue her graduate school class when it started, and 
the other was to not have a teaching job. Neither of those was a very 
good option. She went ahead and moved. Her husband essentially couch-
surfed, but they had to pay for the move rather than the way that 
normally would have happened. This would not have to happen otherwise.
  When Senator Gillibrand and I introduced this bill last year, we were 
also joined by Elizabeth O'Brien, who coached Division 1 college 
basketball for 11 years, with stints at West Point, Hofstra University, 
and the University of Hawaii. But she married into the Army, and 
because of the lack of flexibility, she gave up her coaching career.
  The story she wanted to tell that day was that when she and her 
family were in Germany, where her husband was serving, her two children 
were in a German public school. They needed 2 more months to finish 
that year in the German public school. There really wasn't a very good 
transition when he was sent back to the Pentagon. There were no German 
public schools where they could have finished the classes in the 
Washington area. Basically, they wound up having to finish that year as 
home schoolers and then start another year the next year.
  It would have been very easy for him to move on ahead, if that is 
what the family wanted to do, and for the family to stay in Germany for 
2 months so the children could finish that school year in a way that it 
couldn't possibly be finished anywhere else, and then the family would 
move. That is the kind of thing that would happen under this 
legislation.
  The day after we introduced this legislation, I happened to be 
hosting a breakfast for people who are supportive of Fort Leonard Wood 
and working at Fort Leonard Wood. I sat down at a table with two 
officers. One of their wives, a retired master sergeant, mentioned that 
we had proposed this legislation the day before. All three of them 
immediately had a story about how this would have benefited their 
family if at some time at a specific moment in their career, they could 
have stayed another 30 days or if the family could have gone forward 30 
days earlier.
  I am proud this bill has widespread support, including from the 
National Military Family Association, the Military Officers Association 
of America, the Military Child Education Coalition, Veterans of Foreign 
Wars, the American Legion, Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans of America, 
Blue Star Families, the National Guard Association, and the Veterans 
Support Foundation.
  After more than a decade of active engagement around the world, 
frankly, at a time when military families have a lot more challenges 
than military families may have had at an earlier time, this is exactly 
what we ought to do.
  We have had hearings on other issues over the last year. Over and 
over again, I have asked people who were testifying, representing the 
military, what they think about this. Usually these are admirals and 
general officers. In all cases, a story from their career immediately 
comes to mind. Universally, they say: We have to treat families 
different than we used to treat families because too often the failure 
to do that means we are losing some of our most highly skilled people, 
who are still willing to serve but are no longer willing to put an 
unnecessary burden on their spouse or their children.
  The Military Family Stability Act goes a long way toward removing one 
of those unnecessary burdens. I am certainly pleased to see it included 
in the National Defense Authorization Act and look forward to dealing 
with this important bill at the earliest possible date.
  I see Senator Isakson on the floor, and I yield to him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The Senator from Georgia.


                              Memorial Day

  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, as chairman of the Senate Veterans' 
Affairs Committee, I thank Senator Casey of Pennsylvania for giving me 
a couple of minutes to come to the floor of the Senate to pay tribute, 
preceding Memorial Day, to those men and women--less than 1 percent of 
our population--who have sacrificed, fought, and died on behalf of the 
people of the United States of America. We would not be where we are 
today had it not been for veterans who died on the battlefield so we 
could have free speech, democracy in government, and so our people 
could peacefully decide whom their leaders were and leave it up to us 
to lead the country.
  I want to put a personal face on Memorial Day for just a moment.

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  First, I wish to talk about a guy named Tommy Nguyen. Tommy Nguyen is 
my legislative staffer on military affairs information. He volunteered 
for the U.S. Army Guard. He went to Fort Benning, GA, and graduated No. 
1 in his class. You know what that means at Fort Benning. Right now he 
is deployed in Afghanistan and has been deployed for the past 5 months.
  While we sit here in peace and relative security in our country, 
people like Tommy are protecting us all over. I am grateful for Tommy. 
He is in my prayers every night. He is exemplary of all the other 
people who have gone before us and sacrificed.
  I wish to mention three people who are gone and aren't here any more, 
but they are the faces of Memorial Day, as far as I am concerned. I 
honor them at this time.
  The first is Jackson Elliott Cox III. Jackson Elliott Cox III is from 
Waynesboro, GA, Burke County, the bird dog capital of south Georgia. He 
was my best friend at the University of Georgia in the 1960s. One night 
he came into the fraternity house--in his junior year, my senior year--
and sat down beside me and a few other guys at the dinner table and 
said: Guys, I just did something this afternoon. I volunteered to go to 
OCS in the U.S. Marine Corps, go to Parris Island, and fight in Vietnam 
for the United States of America.
  We all did the first thing all of you would do. We said: Well, Jack, 
have you thought this through? Is this really what you think you ought 
to do?
  He said: You know, I have had everything as a young man to age 22. It 
is time that I fought to help defend the United States of America. I am 
going to become a marine officer, I am going to Vietnam, and I am going 
to help the United States win.
  Jack did become an officer, and he did go to Vietnam. In the 12th 
month of his 13-month tour, he was killed by a sniper. Alex Crumbley, 
Pierre Howard, who was later the Lieutenant Governor of the State of 
Georgia, and I spent a week with his family as we waited for his body 
to come back from Southeast Asia.
  The most meaningful afternoon of my life was the afternoon we sat up 
with Jack and his mother and father reminiscing about all the good 
times but deep down in our hearts knowing all the good times that would 
never be for Jack Cox because he had sacrificed the ultimate sacrifice 
for me, for you, and for all America.
  Second, I wish to talk about LT Noah Harris, the Beanie Baby soldier 
in Iraq. Noah Harris was a cheerleader his junior year at the 
University of Georgia. He cheered on the Saturday before 9/11/2001. As 
everybody did, he watched the horror of the attack that day and all the 
people who were killed.
  He went down to the ROTC building at the University of Georgia and he 
said: I want to volunteer to go after whoever those people were who 
attacked America in New York City.
  The head officer said: Well, son, it is at least a 2-year commitment 
in ROTC, and you only have a year and a half to go. We cannot take you.
  He said: I will make up the difference if you let me volunteer. I 
want to become an officer. I want to go after them, and I want to find 
them wherever they are.
  The Army relented. Noah Harris volunteered. He went to OCS, and he 
went to Iraq in the surge on behalf of the United States of America. He 
became known as the Beanie Baby because he took Beanie Babies in his 
pockets and he won over the children of Iraq by handing out the Beanie 
Babies as he dodged bullets and put himself in harm's way.
  About 6 months into his tour, he was hit by an IED while in a humvee. 
Noah Harris was killed that day in Iraq, and we have missed him ever 
since. To his father Rick and his mother Lucy--God bless them. Noah was 
an only child, and his memory is burned deep in their hearts and deep 
in my mind. They are so proud of what he did for you, for me, and for 
all of America.
  Lastly, I wish to talk about Roy C. Irwin.
  These three people are the faces of why we have Memorial Day. I get 
emotional because I went to the Margraten Cemetery in the Netherlands a 
few years ago as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee to pay 
tribute to those soldiers who died in the Battle of the Bulge and the 
Battle of Normandy. Margraten in the Netherlands is where most of the 
soldiers who were not brought home from the Battle of the Bulge are 
buried.
  On that Memorial Day in Margraten, my wife and I walked between the 
graves, stopping at each one, looking at the name, and saying a brief 
prayer for the soldier and a family. Then all of a sudden, in row 17, 
at grave No. 861, I stopped dead in my tracks and I looked down and saw 
on the white cross: Roy C. Irwin, New Jersey, Private, U.S. Army, 12/
28/44.
  Roy C. Irwin died on December 28, 1944, in the Battle of the Bulge. 
That was the day I was born. So there I was, a U.S. Senator looking at 
the grave of someone who died on the day I was born so I could be a 
U.S. Senator 64 years later. That is what the ultimate sacrifice is all 
about.
  Selflessly, these people went into harm's way, fought for Americans, 
fought for liberty, fought for peace, and fought for prosperity. So 
everything we do today we owe in large measure to them--a small 
percentage of our population but a population that loves America and 
America's people.
  So this Monday when you are at the lake or at the beach or with your 
grandchildren, wherever you might be, stop a minute, grab the hand of 
one of your grandchildren, and just bow and say a brief prayer, because 
going before all of us were men and women who volunteered and lost 
their lives so you and I can do what we are doing today.
  We live in the greatest country on the face of this Earth. You don't 
ever find anybody trying to break out of the United States of America; 
they are all trying to break in. If there is a single reason that 
differentiates us from everybody else--when duty calls, we go and we 
fight.
  As Colin Powell said in the U.N., before the request for the surge 
was approved, America has gone to every continent on Earth, sent her 
sons and daughters to fight for democracy, liberty, and peace, and when 
we have left, all we have asked for is a couple of acres to bury our 
dead.
  I had the chance to walk a couple of those acres in Margraten, the 
Netherlands, and stand at the grave of Roy C. Irwin, who died the same 
day I was born. That memory is burned indelibly in my heart and 
indelibly in my mind, and I will always remember Roy C. Irwin. I never 
knew him, I never met him, and I never saw him, but I know his spirit. 
His spirit is the spirit of the United States of America.
  This Monday, I hope God will bless each of you. Have a wonderful 
vacation and a wonderful holiday. But I hope you will pause and say 
thanks for the men and women who made it possible for you to do what 
you do today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I wish to first say that we appreciate 
the message Senator Isakson just gave to the Senate and, by extension, 
to the country. We are grateful for those remarks in the lead-up to 
Memorial Day.


                         Miners Protection Act

  Madam President, I rise to talk about coal miners and the promise--
the obligation the U.S. Government has to coal miners on a range of 
issues but especially when it comes to their pensions and their health 
care.
  Many Americans remember Stephen Crane as the author of the novel 
``The Red Badge of Courage,'' but he also wrote something that probably 
not many Americans have read, but I have because it was about a coal 
mine near my hometown of Scranton. He wrote it just before the turn of 
the last century. For me, the pertinent parts were in terms of his 
description of what a coal mine looks like and all the dangers that are 
in that kind of work. His words in describing a mine were as follows. 
In describing the mine, he described it as a place of ``inscrutable

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darkness, a soundless place of tangible loneliness,'' and then he went 
on to catalog in horrific detail all the ways that a miner could be 
killed or could be adversely impacted by his work.
  I am thinking about those dangers today when I speak about what coal 
miners have been through over many generations and what they confront 
today because of the pension issue we are going to discuss today. I am 
grateful to be joined by Senator Manchin of West Virginia, Senator 
Brown of Ohio, Senator Warner of Virginia, and Senator Wyden of Oregon.
  Senator Wyden, as the leader of the Democrats on the Finance 
Committee, worked to have a hearing on this issue. It was in March, and 
I had the pleasure at that time of meeting two Pennsylvania coal 
miners, Tony Brusnak of Masontown, PA, which is in Fayette County, and 
Dave Vansickle of Smithfield, PA, also in Fayette County. Tony and Dave 
came to Washington to attend the Finance Committee hearing on pensions. 
I commend Senator Wyden for helping us have that hearing and also for 
his work in negotiating with Chairman Hatch to hold that hearing and 
his continued efforts to get a markup in committee.
  Those of us who attended the hearing heard United Mine Workers 
president Cecil Roberts testify about that promise I referred to 
before, the promise this Nation made to our coal miners, and how the 
Miners Protection Act carries out or carries through on that promise. 
It is one of the ways to fulfill that promise we made to coal miners.
  At the time of that hearing, they were joined by mine workers from 
West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia, and Alabama on that particular day.
  As I mentioned, Tony Brusnak from Fayette County had a 40-year work 
life in the mines, starting in the 1970s at J&L in Bobtown, PA. He is a 
member of the United Mine Workers Local 2300, and he is still active. 
He works at the harbor as a dockman now, and he is also a veteran.
  Dave Vansickle began working in the coal mines about the same time, 
maybe a few months before Tony, so they are both 40-year miners. Dave 
worked at the Cumberland Mine and is a member of the United Mine 
Workers, Local 2300, as is Tony. Over his 40 years in the mine, Dave 
Vansickle has had numerous jobs, ranging from 20 years working on the 
long wall--miners know what that is--to working at the prep plant and 
also doing a range of other work in the mine. Dave Vansickle lost a 
finger doing that work, and he lost partial use of his right hand as 
well as several other fingers. So there is a price that has been paid 
by him and so many others.
  These are very difficult jobs, and we know the men and women--women, 
I should add--who descend into the depths and the darkness of these 
mines assume a substantial personal risk and they work long hours. They 
stay in these jobs as long as they do, in part, because they have been 
given a promise--a promise by our government--that when they retire, 
they will have a pension and, most importantly, they will also have 
good health insurance so they are covered for the ailments they have 
sustained over the years of service.
  The Miners Protection Act, which Senator Manchin and I have 
introduced, along with a bipartisan coalition of Senators, allows 
excess amounts from the Abandoned Mine Lands Fund to be used to 
preserve both coal miner pensions and retiree health care, as needed.
  In Pennsylvania, we have more than 12,000 mine workers who are 
impacted by this--to be exact, 12,951 mine workers in Pennsylvania who 
are counting on us to pass this legislation. Here is the breakdown in 
some of our counties: just about 2,500 in Cambria County, PA, where 
Johnstown is; about 2,100 in Fayette County, where Tony and Dave have 
lived and worked; 1,900 in Indiana County; 1,500 in Washington County; 
and 1,000 in Westmoreland County.
  Without passage of this legislation, something on the order of 20,000 
retirees and 5,000 Pennsylvanians, their dependents or widows could 
lose their promised lifetime retiree health care within a matter of 
months.
  Without the legislation, the United Mine Workers Act 1974 Pension 
Plan, which is the largest of the plans in the country, providing 
pensions to nearly 90,000 pensioners across the country and of course 
their surviving spouses, could be on an irreversible path to insolvency 
by next year.
  Our coal miner men and women live on small pensions, averaging just 
$530 per month, plus Social Security. They rely greatly on the health 
care benefit they have negotiated and earned through their years of 
hard work in the coal mines. So these aren't just numbers, these are 
people. These are families who have worked very hard for Pennsylvania 
and worked very hard for our country. They have children and they have 
grandchildren. The Federal Government made them a promise and we must 
not rest until we fulfill that promise.
  In 1990, a Federal blue-ribbon commission, the so-called Coal 
Commission, established by then-Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole, 
found that ``retired miners have legitimate expectations of health care 
benefits for life; that was the promise they received during their 
working lives, and that is how they planned their retirement years. 
That commitment should be honored.''
  So said Secretary Dole's Commission in 1990.
  It is important to note that the 1974 plan I mentioned has been well 
managed, with investment returns over the last 10 years averaging 8.2 
percent per year. So despite being about 93 percent funded just before 
the financial crisis in 2008, losses sustained during the financial 
crisis placed the 1974 pension plan on the path to insolvency. That is 
because the financial crisis hit at a time when this plan had its 
highest payment obligations. That, coupled with the fact that 60 
percent of the beneficiaries are orphan retirees whose employers are no 
longer in the coal business and the fact that there are only 10,000 
active workers for 120,000 retirees, has helped to place the plan on 
the road to insolvency.
  The 1974 plan's Actuary projects the plan will become insolvent in 
the years 2025-2026, absent passage of the Miners Protection Act. So we 
need to pass this legislation. We have made it very clear to Senators 
in both parties and more recently to the majority leader that we need 
to get this done.
  By making small adjustments to existing law, the bill will allow us 
to fulfill that obligation, that promise I spoke of earlier. At the 
same time, even as we are working to pass the miners' pension 
legislation, we also have to be mindful of--and I will not spend time 
today talking about this in detail--and keep working on miner safety 
and of course those affected adversely by black lung.
  So whether it is safety and health, health care itself, or whether it 
is retiree benefits of any kind--but especially the promise we made to 
miners with regard to their pensions--we have an obligation. This body 
needs to get on a track to pass this legislation before we leave in 
July.
  I am honored to be part of this coalition, and I certainly thank and 
commend and salute the work done by Senator Manchin.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, let me first of all say thanks to my 
dear friend Senator Casey from Pennsylvania. If you don't come from a 
coal-mining region or a coal-mining State, you probably don't 
understand the culture of coal mining, the people who do this work, and 
the families who support them. It might be hard to explain it, but we 
are going to try to give you a picture of the most patriotic people in 
America.
  What I mean by that is they have done the heavy lifting. They have 
done everything that has been asked of them by this country to 
basically make us the greatest country on Earth--the superpower of the 
world, if you will. That has been because of the energy we have had 
domestically in our backyard and the people willing to harvest that for 
us.
  So when you look at this country and you look at how we are treating 
people

[[Page 7167]]

who have done the job and heavy lifting for over 100 years, the coal 
miners in West Virginia feel this way: They feel like the returning 
veterans from Vietnam, the returning servicemen who came from Vietnam--
a war that was not appreciated and soldiers who were treated less than 
honorably for doing the job they did in serving their country. 
Americans now want to cast them aside. It is just unfair--totally 
unfair.
  This country was so dependent upon this industry that in 1947--which 
will be 70 years tomorrow--President Harry S. Truman and John L. Lewis, 
head of the United Mine Workers--and back then, in the 1940s, anybody 
who mined coal was a member of the United Mine Workers of America 
because it was all unionized--made a commitment and a promise they 
would get their benefits. It would be their health care, and they would 
get their pensions, which were so meager--so meager--just to keep 
working and to keep the country energized after World War II. If they 
had shut down and gone on strike, the country would have fallen on 
extremely hard times coming off of World War II.
  That is how important this is. It is the only agreement where you 
have an Executive order by a President committing the United States of 
America to keeping its promise to our coal miners doing a job that made 
our country as great as we are today. Yet here we are, about ready to 
default on that, and we can't get people to move on it for whatever 
reason.
  The miners are facing multiple pressures on their health care, 
pension, and benefits as a result of the financial crisis and corporate 
bankruptcy. This is not because of something they have mismanaged 
themselves. As we heard Senator Casey mention, the 1974 pension plan 
was 94 percent funded, which is extremely healthy and solvent, up until 
2008, when the financial collapse happened. It was not their fault, but 
now they are thrown into disarray.
  Most of the people still collecting these pensions are widows. A lot 
of the husbands have died from black lung. These people are depending 
on a very meager amount of support for any type of quality of life, and 
we have it paid for also. We have had it paid for. We are talking about 
the excess AML money that could basically take care of this. Also, 
there is another pay-for. There is a $5 billion fine that Goldman Sachs 
paid the DOJ for their financial shenanigans during this financial 
collapse that could go to pay for this. I mean, it is Wall Street that 
caused the problem. It wasn't the miners, basically the miners' pension 
fund or the plan that was being managed at all.
  When you couple this with the fact that 60 percent of the 
beneficiaries are orphan retirees, which has been explained, and that 
we have 10,000 active workers for 120,000 retirees, that has placed the 
plan on the road to insolvency. I think everyone understands that.
  The Miners Protection Act is not only important to all miners in all 
States--my good friend here Senator Warner from Virginia has a 
tremendous mining community in Southwest Virginia, along with our 
entire State. Pennsylvania is the home of anthracite coal. The coal 
industry really got started there. We have Senator Brown in Southeast 
Ohio, which butts up to West Virginia and is a major mining area. So it 
is important to my State and all the other States that have retired 
miners.
  People are asking about the nonunion. I am concerned about the 
nonunion miners, and I will do everything and commit myself to helping 
them also, but if we can't even keep our commitment to the United Mine 
Workers of America that was basically signed by President Harry S. 
Truman in 1947, we are not sincere or intent on helping anybody. This 
is something that must be done and must be done immediately. I have 
said that, and I have been preaching this, so I hope we all come to our 
senses and do something as quickly as possible about this.
  These retirees--as far as basically their medical, runs out the end 
of this year. The following year they lose their pensions too. That is 
how desperate this is and what we are dealing with.
  To address these issues the Miners Protection Act would simply do 
this: It would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act to 
transfer funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing 
obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land Fund to the UMWA 1974 Pension 
Plan to prevent its insolvency; second, make certain retirees who lose 
health care benefits following the bankruptcy or insolvency of his or 
her employer eligible for the 1993 Benefit Plan. These assets of 
Voluntary Employment Benefit Association, created following the Patriot 
Coal bankruptcy--and if you don't know about the Patriot Coal 
bankruptcy, I will give you a minute or two on this one.
  Patriot Coal came out of Peabody. Peabody spun Patriot off and put 
all of their liabilities--all of their liabilities--which were 
basically doomed to fail, into Patriot. They threw all of the union 
workers into this liability. And guess what. They went bankrupt. It 
went bankrupt. It was designed to go bankrupt so they could be shed of 
all the liabilities.
  It is our responsibility to keep the promise to our miners who have 
answered the call whenever their country needed them. They have never 
failed us. When our country went to war, these miners powered us to 
prosperity.
  A lot of these young people we have here today don't understand that 
basically coal mining was so important to this country, when we entered 
World War II, if you were a coal miner, it was more important for you 
to stay and mine the coal to power the country--the coal that made the 
steel, that built the guns and ships--than it was to go on the 
frontlines and fight. They were on the frontlines every day. They never 
left the frontlines.
  When our economy was stagnant, the miners fueled its growth and 
expansion. After the war, there was so much buildup, the economy 
started dipping. You had to continue to work and produce in order to 
make that happen, and we needed energy to do that, so the coal miners 
did that.
  They kept their promise to us, and now it is time for us to keep our 
promise to them. We need to honor the commitment. We need to honor the 
Executive order signed by the United States of America to make sure 
they get their pension and make sure they get their health care.
  Senator Casey and I introduced the Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety 
Protection Act to, among other things, make it a felony for mine 
operators to knowingly violate safety standards.
  Six years and 1 day after 29 brave miners were tragically killed at 
the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, former Massey Energy CEO 
Don Blankenship received 1 year in prison, the maximum allowable 
sentence, for willfully conspiring to violate mine safety standards.
  Put simply, the penalty does not fit the crime committed there, and 
we aim to change that. I stood with the families of the beloved miners 
in the days following the devastating tragedy at Upper Big Branch. 
Through moments of hope and despair, I witnessed again and again the 
unbreakable bonds of family that are as strong or stronger than 
anything I have ever seen. While no sentence or amount of jail time 
will ever heal the hearts of the families who have been forever 
devastated, I believe we have a responsibility to do everything we can 
in Congress to ensure that a tragedy like this never, ever happens 
again.
  I thank Senators Casey, Brown, Warner, Wyden, and all of my 
colleagues for putting these miners first and keeping the promise that 
we made to them. It is vitally important that we hold executives who 
are willing to put the health and lives of our workers at risk 
accountable for their actions. We must hold everybody responsible. We 
must hold ourselves responsible first to do the right thing. That is 
what we are standing here talking about today. If we don't stand up for 
the people who basically have stood up and defended us, powered a 
nation and did the heavy lifting and if we can't keep the promise that 
was made 70 years ago, then God help us in the Senate and the Congress.

[[Page 7168]]

  I hope we do step up and do the right thing. I tell all of my 
colleagues that this is not a partisan issue. This is truly bipartisan. 
This is truly bipartisan. These people work for all of us, not just for 
part of us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I am pleased to join my friends--Senator 
Casey, who led this debate; Senator Manchin, who has worked on this 
legislation and devoted much of his career to the people that go down 
into the mines and provide the coal and electricity for much of the 
eastern half of the United States; Senator Warner, for his work with 
Senator Casey and Senator Wyden on the Finance Committee. Thanks to all 
of them.
  I want to talk about two pension issues starting with what happened 2 
weeks ago, when hundreds of thousands of Teamsters and their families 
received exciting news that the U.S. Treasury was rejecting the Central 
States Pension Fund's plan to cut the pensions and benefits they had 
earned through a lifetime of hard work. This was a win for all of us 
who urged Treasury to reject these cuts. More importantly, it was a win 
for the thousands of union members, their families, their supporters, 
and their friends who worked so hard to protect what their union had 
spent decades fighting for. That rejection, to be sure, is not the end 
of the fight for the benefits that workers have earned. It was just the 
latest battle in the fight to protect workers' pensions.
  While Central States' 47,000 Teamsters in my State and tens of 
thousands in other States may have gotten a reprieve, we have more work 
to do. As Senator Manchin just spoke about, our Nation's retired coal 
miners are on the brink of losing their health care and retirement 
savings, and it is within the power of Congress to pull them back.
  The health care and pension plans of the United Mine Workers of 
America cover some 100,000 mine workers, about 7,000 of them living in 
my State, mostly in Southeast Ohio. The plans were almost completely 
funded before the financial collapse in 2008, but the industry and its 
pension funds were devastated by the recession. The plan has too few 
assets, too few employers, and too few union workers now paying in. If 
Congress fails to act, thousands of retired miners could lose their 
health care this year, and the entire plan could fail as early as next 
year. This would be devastating for retired mine workers, like my 
constituent, Norm Skinner.
  I met Norm in March before a Finance Committee hearing on pension 
plans that are under threat. Norm is a veteran. He started working as a 
miner for what became Peabody Coal in 1973. He worked for 22 years and 
retired in 1994. For every one of those years, he earned and 
contributed to his retiree health care plan and his pension plan.
  Since he retired, Norm has had nearly constant health challenges--not 
that unusual for people who work in some of the most dangerous 
conditions in American business. He had triple bypass surgery in 2010. 
Three years later, they inserted stents, and he had angioplasty. Norm 
told me that 60 percent of his colleagues at the mine have died of 
cancer because of the chemicals. When they closed the mine, teams of 
people wearing hazmat suits came in to clean it. His entire shovel crew 
has died of cancer. Some were in their fifties when they passed away. 
But now, after putting in decades in this dangerous mine, Norm is in 
danger of losing the health care that has kept him alive.
  I also met with David Dilly, who worked in the same SIMCO mine. David 
is also a veteran, and he worked for 14 years at the mine before it 
closed down in 1989. He was a UMWA member, even serving as president of 
Local 1188 for a couple of years, and he serves as recording secretary 
still.
  Mining is hard, backbreaking work. It is dangerous. It is dangerous 
every day in the mine. It is dangerous for the air and the chemicals 
that mine workers ingest. They knew that when they signed up for the 
job. But that work has dignity. It is crucial to us and in our national 
interest as a country. It is a dignity rooted in providing security and 
opportunity for their family.
  We used to have a covenant in this country that said: If you work 
hard, if you put in the hours, if you contribute to retirement and your 
health care, you will be able to support yourself and your family. What 
they are doing is giving up union negotiations and also giving up wages 
today to take care of themselves and their family in later years so 
that government or friends or other family members don't have to. What 
is more honorable than that? It is what made this country great. It is 
what built the middle class. So when earned benefits like collectively 
bargained pensions and health care can be cut, we are going back on a 
fundamental promise that our country has made to tens of millions of 
American workers.
  There is a bipartisan solution proposed by the two Senators from West 
Virginia and supported by leaders in both parties. The bill uses the 
interest and surplus from an existing source of money, the Abandoned 
Mines Reclamation Fund, and funnels that money into the health care and 
pension plans. This is a fund for reclaiming the land of retired coal 
mines. So it makes sense to use the surplus to support retired coal 
mine workers and their families.
  If this bipartisan legislation was brought to the floor today, it 
would pass with an overwhelming majority. It is time for the Senate to 
act. This legislation has been blocked by one Republican leader in this 
body. The support of Senator Wyden, Senator Warner, and Senator Casey 
and in the committee seems to be unanimous from the chairman on down. 
We are just looking to the Republican leader to give us a vote on this 
because we are absolutely certain it would pass.
  Miners worked in dangerous conditions their entire lives to put food 
on the table, to send their kids to college, and to help power this 
country. I have worn on my lapel a pin given to me at a workers' 
memorial day in the late 1990s, on an April day, where we were 
memorialized workers who had been killed or injured on the job in the 
steel industry. This is a depiction of a canary in a birdcage. In the 
early 1900s, the mine workers would take a canary down in the mines. If 
a canary died because of lack of oxygen or toxic gas, the mine workers 
knew they had to get out of the mine. Yet, in those days, there was no 
union strong enough to protect them and they had no government that 
cared enough to protect them. We are in the situation today where it is 
up to us to be that canary. It is up to us to provide for those 
workers--who have earned these pensions, who have earned this health 
care for themselves and, in far too many cases, for their widows--and 
to step up and do the right thing.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am proud to stand here with my 
colleagues and friends--Senator Manchin from West Virginia, Senator 
Casey from Pennsylvania, Senator Brown from Ohio, and, shortly after 
me, Senator Wyden from Oregon--to echo what has already been said.
  Senator Brown said it best. He wears that canary pin. If we don't act 
now, if we don't hear that call and respond to it, then the basic 
promise and premise that so much of our country is founded on will 
really be crushed.
  I join my colleagues in standing up and urging the Senate to pass the 
Miners Protection Act. We have mines--just as in Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
and West Virginia--in southwest Virginia. Quite honestly, I think, as 
do my colleagues, that no one fully understands what it is like to mine 
coal until you have been underground, until you see the enormous 
challenges and conditions that men and women--mostly men--worked under 
for decades to power our Nation.
  Senator Manchin often recites the history of this proud industry. But 
that industry has gone through dramatic changes. Some of those changes 
are due to activities of certain companies that may or may not have 
been responsible. Some of these changes are because of a desire of many 
of us, frankly, on this side of the aisle, to make sure that we find 
cleaner ways to use energy. In a

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way, that is good. But it has meant that many of these coal companies 
and many of these operators that continue to mine what powered America 
are under enormous fiscal stress. The result is not enough miners, coal 
companies that went bankrupt, and, unfortunately, the pension funds 
that would protect these miners are now in jeopardy.
  So now, through no fault of their own, these workers who have 
sacrificed their bodies, their health, and their livelihoods--when it 
comes to the U.S. Government to uphold our end of the deal to make sure 
that these workers or, more specifically, as my colleagues have pointed 
out, more often it is their widows, as so many of these miners have 
passed on due to things like black lung disease--are going to get the 
health care and pensions that were promised and whether we are going to 
be able to honor that commitment.
  The UMWA 1974 Pension Fund affects about 100,000 miners and close to 
10,000 in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They are looking to us and 
whether we are going to honor our commitment.
  As Senator Brown mentioned, I met a number of these miners, who are 
direct beneficiaries, when we had our most recent hearing. Many of 
these miners I had worked with and supported when I was Governor of 
Virginia, and I saw the challenges their communities had gone through. 
If we don't do our job, these communities that have been hard hit all 
throughout Appalachia--if these widows don't get the health care and 
their pensions, communities that have already been devastated will be 
further devastated. If we allow this pension fund to go bankrupt and go 
insolvent, it will put additional strains on the PBGC, which is already 
under enormous strain.
  The truth is, as Senator Manchin has pointed out, there is a 
solution, and there is funding available for this miner pension act. It 
is critically important that we act. It is critically important, 
morally and economically. I would ask any of my colleagues to speak to 
any of these widows and explain why we wouldn't keep our end of the 
bargain when, come the end of this year, if we don't act, these health 
care benefits will disappear. I hope we will act on this bipartisan 
legislation. The Senator from Ohio has indicated it would pass this 
body overwhelmingly.
  I appreciate all of my colleagues' work. I see and turn the floor 
over to the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. He doesn't 
have a lot of coal in Oregon, but he understands that, when a 
commitment is made--particularly a commitment that was initially made 
by the President of the United States, President Truman, back in 1946--
those commitments need to be honored. I look forward to continuing to 
work with his leadership to get this legislation out of the Finance 
Committee, get it to the floor of the Senate, get it passed, and make 
sure these miners' and their widows' health care pensions are honored.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia, Senator 
Casey, Senator Brown, and Senator Manchin. They have been relentless in 
putting this issue of justice for the miners in front of the Finance 
Committee.
  Week after week, month after month, they have been saying: When is 
this going to get done? When is the Congress--particularly the Senate--
going to step up and meet the needs that these workers richly deserve 
to have addressed? We have had this documented again and again. I heard 
Senator Casey talk about it--how difficult this work is. We have had 
that put in front of the Senate Finance Committee. Yet there has been 
no action.
  Senator Warner is right--my home State of Oregon does not mine coal. 
We do have a lot of communities with economies that over the years have 
been driven by natural resources. They have been up and down the boom-
and-bust roller coaster. A lot of those communities are experiencing 
the very same kind of economic pain you see in the mining towns Senator 
Casey and our colleagues represent.
  You don't turn your backs on workers and retirees in these struggling 
communities, these struggling mining towns, just because the times are 
tough. These workers have earned their pensions. They have earned their 
health care benefits. But the fact is, if Congress does not act soon, 
all of this could be taken away.
  There is a broader crisis in multi-employer pensions that I have 
talked about on the floor and in the Finance Committee. Part of this 
crisis goes back to a bad law that passed, over my opposition, in 2014. 
It gave a green light to slashing benefits for retirees and multi-
employer pension plans. It said that it was OK to go back on the deal 
companies made with their workers and to take away benefits--benefits 
people had earned through years of hard work. So there are a lot of 
seniors now walking an economic tightrope every day, and this law 
threatens to make their lives even harder.
  Now you have the mine workers' pensions--the pensions Senator Casey 
and colleagues have been talking about--in such immediate danger, there 
is enormous financial pressure being put on the Pension Benefit 
Guaranty Corporation. That is because the Pension Benefit Guaranty 
Corporation is an economic backstop for millions of retirees. It 
insures the pensions belonging to mine workers and more than 40 million 
Americans. But the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is in danger of 
insolvency if the Congress doesn't step up and find a solution for the 
troubles facing multi-employer pension plans. And fixing the mine 
workers' pension plan is a critical component of any solution for the 
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's insurance program. If you don't 
come up with a solution there, you are going to put in place a 
prescription for trouble for generations of retired workers across the 
country.
  Senator Manchin has worked strenuously for this cause, reaching 
across the aisle to Senator Capito. I mentioned my colleagues on the 
Finance Committee. There is now a bipartisan proposal ready to go to 
protect retired mine workers' health benefits and bolster their pension 
plan. It would stave off the threat of financial ruin for more than 
100,000 workers and their families and would help safeguard the Pension 
Benefits Guaranty Corporation and the millions of Americans who count 
on it to insure their livelihoods. We understand that if you want to do 
something important in the Senate, it has to be bipartisan, so we have 
reached out to the majority to find a way to advance this proposal.
  The mine workers are not facing some imaginary policy deadline. Their 
livelihoods are on the line. Their health care is on the line. The 
economic security of entire communities is on the line. So it is time 
for the Congress to step up.
  I again thank my colleagues.
  I wish to note that I have some additional remarks to make, and I am 
going to wait to give those remarks because I understand Senator 
Heitkamp, Senator Donnelly, and Senator Coats are going to go 
beforehand. I see our friend from North Dakota on her feet.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, let me add my voice to those of my 
colleagues who have come here to plead the case for mine workers and 
for equity for widows, equity for people who have worked their entire 
lives with their hands and now have their future jeopardized by the 
lack of attention to this critical issue of their pensions.


                              Student Debt

  Mr. President, I rise today to talk about another very important 
middle-class economic issue and one that we have been talking about 
ever since I got here; that is, the overwhelming burden of student 
debt.
  Earlier this week I spoke at Envision 2030 in Bismarck. It was a 
convening of academic and political leaders in my State to discuss the 
needs of students who will be embarking on and graduating from college 
in the next 15 years. Incredible amounts of time was spent on college 
affordability. I challenged many of the education leaders to take a 
look at what it is going to take to reduce costs so that students

[[Page 7170]]

do not have to borrow so much money as they are pursuing their higher 
education opportunities.
  Like the rest of the country, North Dakota's students are getting 
bogged down in debt before they even graduate from college. This debt 
impacts their futures, their families, and their communities.
  I would argue that this debt is endangering the economic viability of 
our country. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, 
the average amount of student debt a person in North Dakota owes has 
now risen above $27,000. North Dakota students have some of the highest 
rates of indebtedness in the country, as 83 percent of the class of 
2011 graduated with some form of debt. That is more than any other 
State in the country for that year.
  Across the country, these statistics paint a bleak picture. I want to 
point that out as we are looking at debt and what debt can do to an 
economy. Certainly, we talk a lot about the debt we have in this 
country. If you take a look at this chart, you will understand that 
this peak in debt here is really right after the debt crisis. There was 
rising consumer debt in credit cards. Here is student loans. This is 
mortgage debt, obviously, at a peak. This is auto loan debt.
  Notice this: Everything went down and has come down in terms of 
debt--percentage of balance that is 90 days or more delinquent--except 
one category, and that is student loan debt.
  We like to tell the story honestly. These people who have credit card 
debt and mortgage debt are not deadbeats; they want to pay their 
obligations. These students also want to pay, but they are finding it 
virtually impossible to pay this amount of student debt with the lack 
of economic opportunities and with the rising number of challenges they 
have in meeting these obligations.
  A lot of people think: Well, this is just a problem for kids in their 
twenties. That is not going to be a problem. They will work their way 
through it. That opportunity will be available to them.
  Take a look at this. If you go back to 2004, 42 percent of everybody 
impacted was in their twenties, and now it is 32 percent. That growing 
impact goes not only into your thirties but also into your forties, and 
we have the highest percentage increase, probably, in the number of 
people 60 and older who are burdened by student debt.
  This chart tells an incredible story of the burden all of this 
student debt is having on the economy. Well, what do we do about it? I 
have signed on many pieces of legislation here that would do one simple 
thing: It would help refinance this student debt.
  We have record-low interest rates in this country. We have never 
before seen the continuity and consistency of low interest rates. 
Amazing. If you have a high interest rate and you have a car loan, you 
refinance it. If you have a high interest rate and you have a home, you 
refinance your mortgage. But can you refinance your student debt? You 
will never take advantage of this.
  Well, in North Dakota we have an institution called the Bank of North 
Dakota. It might shock people here, given the kind of attitude I see 
toward the Export-Import Bank, but the Bank of North Dakota is owned by 
the people of the State of North Dakota. About a third of their capital 
is invested in students. It is an opportunity to develop our State. We 
make home mortgage loans. We make beginning-farmer loans. We 
participate with local banks in economic development loans. We have 
some great economic development programs at the Bank of North Dakota.
  I am still in the ``we'' mode because when I was attorney general, I 
used to serve on their board of directors. Senator Hoeven ran the Bank 
of North Dakota. It is an amazing institution.
  When we find our citizens crippled with debt, what do we do? We try 
to figure out how to help them. We don't say: We are going to make more 
money on you by keeping our interest rates at 6.8 percent and not 
letting you refinance. We say: You know what, that is not helpful to 
our economy.
  Let me tell you about the results of the consolidation program the 
Bank of North Dakota runs. First of all, there are qualifiers. The 
first qualifier is that you have to be a U.S. citizen. You can't be 
attending school any longer. You must have been a North Dakota resident 
for 6 months. And if this gets out, we may see a flood of young people 
coming to our State. You must meet Bank of North Dakota credit criteria 
or have a creditworthy cosigner.
  Your loan options are any student loan that you have or your parents 
have or your grandparents have can be consolidated into this program. 
We will take Stafford; Perkins; parent loans for undergraduate 
students, which is called PLUS in North Dakota; Grad PLUS in North 
Dakota; and DEAL, which is another student loan program that they run 
at the Bank of North Dakota; and any private lending from any other 
institution.
  What do we do? We consolidate all of that debt and refinance it into 
lower interest rates and offer people a number of different packages.
  Let me tell you what the consequences are. Let's take a look at 
someone who is in a student loan program that charges 6.8 percent per 
annum for that student debt. If you have a loan amount of $35,000 at 
6.8 percent and your repayment term is 300 months--think about that, 
300 months. What is that in terms of a lifetime? That is a lot of 
months for a lifetime. Your monthly payment is $242 or almost $243. The 
total interest you will pay traditionally, without consolidation and 
without refinancing, is about $38,000.
  Under this refinancing program, you can do it one of two ways: You 
can refinance on a fixed rate or you can refinance on a variable rate.
  You may say: Oh, variable rates--isn't that what has gotten so many 
consumers in trouble?
  What the bank does is they say you can only raise the rate 1 percent 
a year under the variable rate and you are capped at 10 percent. So you 
will never pay more than 10 percent. Or you can opt to lock in at our 
fixed rate, which at the time this chart was done was 4.71 percent. If 
you use the variable rate, you can lock in at just slightly above 2 
percent.
  Let's take those same payment terms--300 months. Your monthly 
payments for the Deal One fixed rate would be less than $200, compared 
almost to $250. Your total interest paid would be $13,000 less over the 
lifetime of that loan. If you go with the variable rate, assuming we 
don't see a dramatic increase in interest rates, you will pay $150 a 
month. It is almost $100 less. The total interest you will pay at these 
low rates is $10,000, compared to $37,000. Think about that. Think 
about what that means to a family.
  If we take this even further and we speed up payments under the DEAL 
Program--let's try to do this in less months because no one wants to be 
locked in for 300 months of their life. If you look at going to a fixed 
rate for 157 months, you can greatly reduce your overall interest paid 
to about $12,000. Your monthly payment would be $300, and the total 
amount you will pay--let's compare that to the fixed rate going to 300 
months; you pay almost $60,000. If you go to a shorter period of time, 
almost cut that time in half and increase your payments to $300 a 
month, you will only pay $47,000 on a $35,000 loan going with the fixed 
rate we currently have. If you go with variable, assuming the interest 
rates stay low, a $35,000 variable loan amount gets you down to just 
under $40,000.
  Why can't we do this for every student in America? When I hear that 
the solution to the student debt problem is that we ought to limit the 
amount of repayment to 15 percent or we ought to forgive it after so 
many years, I don't think that is a solution for a lot of good North 
Dakotans who want to repay their debt. But to simply say we will not 
consolidate, we will not give an opportunity for students to take 
advantage of low interest rates is incredibly irresponsible. It is tone 
deaf to the impact that it has on whether we can start a new business, 
whether we can get a mortgage for a home, whether we can buy a car, 
whether we can save for

[[Page 7171]]

our retirement so we don't have pension problems in the future, and 
whether we can save for our kids' college education.
  Why aren't we doing this? Someone answer that question for me. If we 
can make this for students in the State of North Dakota, why can't we 
make this happen for students all across this country? That is the 
question I have come to ask because I think a lot of people talk about 
the ideas of restructuring student debt and what we can do to help 
students, and a lot of it is about debt forgiveness. You know what. I 
think people want to pay their debt in America. If they signed a piece 
of paper that says they will repay it, they want to repay it. Let's 
give them a chance to do that without continuing to mortgage their 
future and make them slaves to student debt.
  I have a personal story. My niece and her husband were able to use 
this program. They continued to pay the same amount as they were paying 
when they had four or five different loans and they consolidated. They 
are spending the same amount on their student loan, and guess what. 
They have cut the time for payment of their student debt in half. They 
are now able to save for their children's future and college education.
  People say it can't be done. You bet it can be done. We are doing it 
in North Dakota, and if we can do it in North Dakota, we can do it in 
this country. Let's step up and recognize this for the economic problem 
that is not just for families but for this country, and let's do 
something. Let's quit talking about student debt and actually do 
something about that.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.

                          ____________________