quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask consent the quorum call be suspended and speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: we were engaged in a lengthy debate about health care in the united states, and i believe that we passed an historic bill that addresses some of the most fundamental issues about health care. first, to address affordability, because if you can't afford it, it doesn't matter how good medical care is.

second, it make sure it was successful, that people rich and poor alike. third to make sure that the basic health insurance policies being offered in america covered the most important things in a person's life. that was part of the debate and an important part of it. a fundamental principle of health care reform is to ensure americans have access to a comprehensive package of health services. we call them essential benefits under the law, which includes maternity care, vaccinations and preventive care. mr. president, many, many years ago, when i was a new lawyer working in the illinois state senate, someone approached me and said are you aware of the fact that you can buy a health insurance plan that covers a family, literally covers newborns kpwu pw*u exempts coverage -- but exempts coverage for the first 30 days of their life in illinois. i said that is impossible. he said no, that kind of health

care is for sale and it's a little cheaper because we all know if a baby is born with a serious problem, the first 30 days can be extremely expensive. they were literally selling health insurance plans that left that family and baby vulnerable for 30 days. we changed the law in illinois and said you can't offer a health insurance plan that covers maternity and newborns unless you cover them from the moment they're born. so it was written into the law as a protection against consumers who unwittingly would sign up for the cheaper policy that would never be there when they needed it. when we talked about the federal standards, when it came to health insurance, we wanted to make certain that some of the most basic things, the essential services were covered. and that includes maternity care, vaccinations and preventive care for women. there's an amendment we'll consider this week offered by senator blunt of missouri that i'm afraid will threaten the vital consumer protections in the health reform law. these protections ensure that

women, men and children have access to basic health care. the amendment by senator blunt would allow any employer or insurance company to deny health insurance for any essential or preventive health care service they object to on the basis of -- quote -- "undefined religious or moral convictions." that means literally that an employer cannot only deny access to family planning and birth control, but they could deny access to any health care services required under our new federal health care reform law. many supporters of this amendment stress how the amendment will protect employers with religious objections to things such as coverage for contraception. but in reality, this amendment goes much further. it would allow employers to deny coverage for any health service.

for example, under the blunt amendment, if an employer objects morally to vaccinations, then their insurance policy wouldn't have to cover potentially lifesaving vaccinations for the children of that employer's workers. or if an employer has religious objections to mental health care, their employees would not have access to basic health care services that we fought to protect in the bill. the blunt amendment will have a harmful effect on all people and would undermine our nation's efforts to ensure everyone in this country has access to a basic standard of health coverage. who opposes the blunt amendment? not just women's groups, as you might expect. but the american academy of pediatrics, aids united, american nurses association, and the american congress of obstetricians and gynecologists. mr. president, i know your personal background and field of study has included theology and

religious training, in that area. and i know that this particular debate was brought on because of president obama's decision when it came to the health care coverage offered by religious colleges, universities and charities. the president's offer at this point says that no religious-sponsored institution, such as a college, university, hospital or charity, will be forced to offer health services that violate their basic principles and values, their religious values. the president goes on to say, though, that the employees of that institution would have the right on their own initiative to a service not provided to them under the hospital or university policy, that they can secure by going directly to the insurance company. it removes the church-sponsored, religious-sponsored institution from making the initial decision

that might run counter to their values, but gives the freedom to the individual employee to pursue the health care under the law which they consider to be essential, such as family planning. now, some say that this is unacceptable. i think it strikes the right balance. the balance between respecting the conscience and religious values of certain institutions while still protecting the freedom of individuals. there's been a lot of talk in this presidential campaign about religion. much of it has come from a former senator from pennsylvania. i would like to remind him and those who have not followed it closely there are exactly three provisions in the united states constitution when it comes to religion. one of them says that we have the right, the freedom of religion. religious belief, which gives us the right to believe what we want to believe or to believe nothing. that is guaranteed under the constitution.

secondly, that the government will not pick a religion. i've heard candidates say we are a christian nation. no. we are an american nation, which includes many, many christians but others of different religious belief. and the constitution says the government will never pick its religion. the third point that is often overlooked, and i would refer to the senator from pennsylvania, is in the constitution that there will be no religious test for office. in other words, we couldn't establish under the law, if anyone cared to, that only christians can be elected, or jewish folks could be elected to the senate or the house. strictly unconstitutional. those three principles have guided us well, and it's important for us to make sure as we tackle the issues of the day that we apply the principles that have endured. in this circumstance, we have to understand that militant secularization is as intolerant as militant desecularization.

we have to try to strike that balance. i commend to those who are following my remarks and would like to read more an article that was published in "the new york times" on february 24 by jona serra entitled "revolutionary idea." he traces the history of this. his opening remarks include the following -- quote -- "rick santorum is john winthrop." referring of course to mr. winthrop who joined with the puritans in trying to assert that our government needed to stand for puritanical beliefs. and that debate which even predates the constitution is one which molded our country and makes it what it is today. there emerged from that debate over the puritans and what they would do a feeling that there had to be a separation between church and state, religious

belief and secular administration of our government. that is the debate that continues today. this generation, regardless of the issue of the day, needs to preserve the same basic values that led to this debate in the early colonies and ultimately to our constitutional principles. as we find countries all over the world bitterly divided, violently divided over religion, we need to take care in our generation that we protect the basics. the president's decision when it comes to health care through the insurance policies protects those basic values. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. durbin: mr. president. i ask the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m. tod underway off the senate floor. and we'll get to that momentarily. right now we'll go live to the pentagon briefing room where they're bringing up a military mortuary briefing at dover air force base in delaware. that base receives the

bodies of deceased soldiers being returned in battle. this briefing comes at culmination into an investigation into mishandled remains at the base. >> before turning it over to general abizaid to describe the report's findings and conclusions let me say attorney general panetta grateful to. general abizaid and members devoting time and energy to this mission. secretary panetta remains the highest care for our remains of our fallen heroes. he asked deputy carter and chairman dempsey to work with the leadership of military services to develop a implementation plan on the report's recommendations. these recommendations for the air force as well as other services and dod components will strengthen the chain of command, improve oversight and help reduce the risk that these problems will occur again. secretary panetta believes that dover is a sacred place with a sacred responsibility

and he is committed to meeting this department's responsibility to deliver the greatest respect and reference to our fallen heroes. we have a statement from the secretary, copies of which are available here and we'll also distribute it via e-mail. now, let me turn it over to general abizaid to give some opening remarks and take your questions. >> good afternoon there, ladies and gentlemen. good to be here. i briefed the secretary yesterday, chief of staff of the army, secretary of the army, chief of staff of the air force, secretary of the air force and other people as well. deputy secretary of defense was in there as well and the chairman of the joint chiefs on the findings of this report. it is a complex subject and it's going to require me to do some explanation to you. so i'm going to use some charts. i don't normally do that but i think in order to understand what happened here you have to take a look at it. i would like to publicly thank the members of the panel, a very distinguished

group of americans, they included general fred franks, caleb cage, gary huey, fountain, jackie taylor, mortuary subject matter experts. bruce parks, medical examiner expert. dr. vic snyder is a former member of congress and also a medical doctor. and very importantly miss ruth stonecipher who is gold star mother. very important to have her on the panel as well. i want to make sure you understand what we were told to do and what we weren't told to do so you can put this in perspective. of course we were told to look in a forward-looking manner about whether or not we're moving in the proper direction to correct deficiencies out at dover that were noted in a number of different reports and we were told to look at processes, techniques, procedures, to make sure they were, those that were having deficiencies at, are being corrected that we note

that to the secretary of defense if they have been corrected and look at overall systems to see if they're working right or if they worked right previously. we were not told, as a matter of fact, we were precluded from looking at any of the disciplinary matters associated with the various investigations that have gone on. i think you will hear later today from the secretary of the air force about those matters. some of those matters but, again, that was not the charter of our committee. the committee was composed of, or the panel was composed of a very, very solid group of experts and i think we were able to over a period of two months, look as close as we could in that shorter of a period of time at the process, the procedures and the activities, chain of command, et cetera in order to understand how to fix it. the good news, and there is good news and i will get more to the news that probably is not so good as

well, but the good news there has been a lot of progress made at dover. the air force put a new commander in there. new commander, colonel tom joyce, very effective commander. he is doing an exemplary job moving forward to correct the matters noted in the various investigative reports. captain craig malik is the medical examiner at dover. he is also a very fine commander. that is moving forward, correcting many of the deficiencies that were noted. an awful lot of the problems associated with mishandling of remains, the final point of resting for the fallen, et cetera, these points are, i think, addressed in manners that people will appreciate and we commend the air force in particular but the other services as well for moving forward in a positive way. however there's a lot of

things that need to be done there to correct problems that we saw and it's important to understand that these problems need to be corrected right away. there is nothing more important than insuring that our troops in the field know that if they give their last full measure that the country will do everything for them to make sure that they are treated with dignity and respect and honor and reference on the way to their final resting place and that's hugely important and that was one of the most important themes that pervaded everything that the subcommittee did. i want to bring to your attention that we did make a report to the defense health board in san antonio which was a public report. that transcript is probably going to be available at some time. i don't know exactly when but it will be very shortly. there was an awful lot of good discussion there that can help you understand some of the more detailed technical issues from the

report. but it's critically important i think that we own up to what the problems were out there. that we correct them and understand that this is not just an air force problem. this is a department of defense issue. there were policy issues that weren't clear. executive agency was not strongly exercised by the army. the chain of command and command oversight was not properly conducted. technical oversight was almost nonexistent. rules, regulations, et cetera, were not properly understood, disseminated and taken into account in a way that i think that we all can appreciate. so what i'm going to do, if you will bear with me, because i know you have questions and i want to get to your questions, if you will bear with me let me talk about the organization so you know how things work.

it is very complex but unless you understand these relationships and organization you probably can't put this in proper context with regard to our recommendations. so we have here the important organization. air force mortuary affairs office which received most of our time and attention. the armed forces medical examiner service. the joint personal effects depo and various service liaisons. i urge you to focus on these four organizations. i think from the report you probably know what they do. that is the mortuary, the medical examiner is in civilian parlance the coroner. the joint personal effects depo takes the final, the equipment and personal effects from the fallen and gets them to their proper point of destination. they also take personal effects from anybody in the

field that's been removed as from the field as a result of combat or sickness. so it's a very, very big job that they have. and over here the service liaison officers, they are the point of interface between the families and the armed forces, the air force mortuary affairs office and the armed forces medical examiner service. what is done here is partially in conjunction. what is done here is fully in conjunction with afmam. and there is coordination responsibilities all along the line. we found out points of friction between afmam, armed forces medical examiner where portions were unaccounted for or improper handoff of accountable of remains took place. we also found from time to time service liaison officers were unable to get

the proper information to families in timely manner and, when you look at this chain of command and then you realize how it is reporting, jpeg reports up to the army channels. armed forces medical examiner reports to the medical research and material commander and u.s. army medical chain of command. afmao reports right now to the assistant a-1 of the air force. that is personnel officer. and service liaison officer reports directly to the their respective services. next slide. could you go back please? couple other things here to make sure people understand. the department of the army is the executive agent for mortuary affairs for the department of defense. so they're responsible not only for, do i need this?

>> you do. >> ah. okay. >> so the, army is the executive agent for the department of defense. and they are responsible for harmonizing policy across all these various organizations. and of course the army has a very important roll out side of the mortuary in the activities that go on in the field when fallen troops are collected on the battlefield, transported back home. and it's huge operation that the army runs there. as the war progressed it was found necessary to form a centralized joint mortuary affairs board which was responsible for coordinating all of these various activities to insure that the work was done properly, that there was some degree of policy oversight. it was chaired by an army colonel and the members of it were primarily civilians

and military members in the o-6 level of rank captains in the navy, colonels in the army. of course the department of defense, usd for personnel and readiness, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, is charged with overall policy oversight of this. next slide. try to get through this quickly. so this is the historic chain of command. prior to 2008 was in effect. don't need that. if you take a look at it and you see these comments on the side here, too many command channels. kind of a very difficult chain of come to sort your way through. the air force thought it necessary to streamline the chain of command, so they moved to -- next slide. this chain of command. this chain of command is the commander at afmao.

it goes on up through the assistant personnel officer of the air force, to the three-star, three-star personnel officer for the air force, chief of staff of the air force. when we looked at this command, this command structure we figured that there was very little command oversight possible from it. first of all, the afmao commander did not have uniform code of military justice authority which all commanders need. he was not, what i would call a centrally selected commander. the a-1-s was a civilian, ses at the time. and had no command authority of his own and of course the three-star above the a-1-s has no command authority either. so you have a commander in name who has no command authority, no true command authority reporting to a chain of command that is a

staff chain that is not responsible to commanders and this, in our opinion, showed lack of command oversight. if any of you think that organizations within this building would better supervise field activities than other commanders in the field i think you would be mistaken. i think you probably know that. so it's important to understand that. next slide. the other portion that you need to understand is that within the chain of command there is a requirement for oversight of inspection and that requirement was not fully exercised throughout the operations that were conducted at afmao. so command oversight, inspection oversight were lacking. technical oversight was also lacking. in other words, outside of

the very small group of, who are by the way very excellent embalmers and morticians that operate from afmao, there was no body of independent technical oversight that could show them the way ahead or could brief them on the most modern techniques. so here you see one of the realignments that's currently underway between the armed forces medical examiner and afmao. now what you have to understand, this is a diagram of the building that they work form and this really shows that activity between afmao and the armed forces medical examiner was intermingled within this activity, within this building in this facility. and there are, in the civilian world you would recognize the coroner as being very separate and distinct from the mortician.

so next slide. in the reorganization that's taken place, they have completely separated those two activities and they have made a, a clear line in the sand of responsibilities between organizations. in the many recommendations that we made, we made 20 of them, i will highlight the ones in command-and-control. the secretary of the air force needs to direct that the commander at afmao be given uniform code of military justice authority. that he be centrally selected and that he be trained well in advance of accepting this position. also very clear to us that the air force, next slide. go back to the first slide,

please. that the air force needs to establish a responsive chain of command and we recommend that that be an air force two-star, either from an existing command or a new command but i man the air force will probably figure a way through services commands to figure out how to get the oversight. but our recommendation says that we have to strengthen the chain of command by giving the air force a clear line of command authority for afmao. that the armed forces medical examiner also needs to be given command authority and that the service liaison officers need to become directly responsible to the commander at afmao. i know this is confusing. i know there's an awful lot of moving parts and boxes in there but think if you read the report and understanding this line and wire diagram you will understand some of the changes that we recommended from a command

perspective. we also recommended that the centralized joint mortuary affairs board have the general officers at the top, above the level of afmao. at the top be part of the cj map and that the senior army general officer or assistant secretary of defense chair that and have directive authority, which they did not have previously, to make policy recommendations flow through the chain of command, et cetera. throughout all of this you can see that in order to make all this work you've got to have an overarching department of defense inspector general or some form of inspection agency designated by the secretary of defense to look at all of this, to make sure that the problems between organizations are fixed and properly accounted for. we think that just like in the nuclear surety business

we need to understand that this is 100% no-fail mission. and that means the same level of care needs to be taken with regard to the final resting place of our fallen that we do in safeguarding our nuclear munitions. i think it is hugely important to understand it is a no-fail mission. perfection is expected and there has to be very stringent oversight and by the way the air force can do this. they have a very excellent oversight program for nuclear weapons security. and accountability and those type of standards and organizational readiness, inspections, et cetera, should also be implemented here. and of course the secretary of defense has a, and the secretary of the army have roles making sure that this system works as well. there are also training issues that we found at afmao. these training issues, although the people there are quite skilled in what they do, the training issues

are more routine training that needs to be conducted over time. we found some issues with regard to manning in terms of whether it was robust enough, robust enough. we also found some other resourcing issues throughout afmao that need to be addressed and the air force by the way is addressing them. finally it's important to note that as you look through the report there are many other recommendations that we urge the air force to make but for the panel it's clear to us that correcting the lack of oversight for command, lack of oversight for technical capabilities, lack of oversight for policy, et cetera, et cetera, all of these things need to be fixed and the report provides a way for them to be fixed in a very timely manner. the panel also recommended the establishment of a board of visitors, of technical

experts, not unlike the board of visitor or the panel that we assembled to be able to report through the defense health board on technical oversight matters and assisting afmao getting their job done in particular. so i presume you've all read the report. i will quit talking now and i will answer your questions. yes, sir? >> general, i know your review is supposed to look at current operations and how to improve things going forward but seems to me there are some startling revelations about things that happened in the past at the mortuary? >> startling. i wouldn't say it is startling when you don't have a effective chain of command. >> let me ask you your characterization of this. it seems to imply in a couple of places that unidentified remains portions of at least some of the 911 victims -- 9/11

victims that had been recovered from the pentagon attack and from shanksville were incinerated and dumped in a landfill. i don't think we heard that before. can you clarify that and were you surprised by that? >> no, i can't really clarify that. i can clarify that the process for unidentified remains, by the way, all the remains of all of our fallen have been identified. but you have to also understand the way the remains come into the mortuary from times to time, not all the time but unfortunately way too often where there are either many pieces that happen to be mixed as a result of a horrific explosions that take place from ieds and so what happens, craig, is that the unidentified remains, and you can imagine there is a lot of unidentified

remains and i can also imagine that there are subsequent remains, portions. these are not whole bodies. the idea that whole bodies were ending up in a landfill is not correct. what happened was, just give me a second, i will come back to you, what happened was unidentified portions or portions that the families elected not to have join up with the already-buried major portions of the fallen, went to a crematorium. they were cremated there. from the crematorium, they were in some sense or other mixed with, and we can'tly tell for sure. we don't have the full information. i'm sure you will have to talk to the air force about what exactly happened. but they were either mixed in with some portion of medical waste. so you're taking the remains. you are cremating them.

then you're mixing them in with some medical waste. i can't say what it is because we just couldn't figure it out. then it goes to an incineration. then the incineration, it gets down even further and then from the incineration, it was turned over to medical waste contractors and that's where the notion of it ending up in a the landfill comes about and as far as we're concern, that's what happened. >> yes, sir, i understand. >> by the way we don't think it should have happened. we think our fallen deserve what they're getting now, which is the fallen remains are taken out to sea and they're buried at sea. or, there are other things that you see in the report about the veterans administration providing other options that we think the department can put into effect. >> yes, sir. i guess what i'm asking has to do with 9/11 victims because previously the air force had described the

procedure you just did but they had said, they only had records of this happening going back to 2003. what your report says is --. >> i think -- >> please let me finish. i want to clarify. this is important. a lot of people in the public want to know what happened with this. it says that these incinerations of unidentified portions of remains -- >> can you give me the page that's on? >> page 6 of one of your subsequent sections, under section 2, background and introduction. if you look on page 6 on the third full paragraph it says, this policy began shortly after september 11th, 2001 when several portions of remains from the pentagon attack and shanksville, pennsylvania, crash site could not be tested or identified. >> right. >> these cremated portions were then placed in sealed containers that were provided to a biomedical waste disposal contractor.

the contractor then transported these containers and incinerated them. the residual material was did disposed of in a landfill. is that referring specifically to september 11 victims and do you know how extensive this was? >> no, i don't know how extensive it was. it was only those victims that went through the port mortuary. >> how many of those do you know were there? >> i don't know. >> is there a way to find out? >> i don't know that there's a way to find out. what you need to understand, the reason that we put that comment in there is that there is a starting point for understanding how this happened. in other words, while, i understand how sensational the notion is there was a point where people considered going to the crematorium. in some state's it's law that is the final disposition of the following -- fallen. and so that it goes from the

what many have considered the final disposition, which we don't agree with by the way. we think the final disposition needs to be the final resting place and we believe if that in 9/11 you can trace back the origins or why what happened happened. we only have records that really go back, the air force only has records that we know of only go back, this is anecdotal evidence, that was told to us by the people that we interviewed. >> yes, sir, sir. but in appendix e of your report it listed under timeline, 25 july 2002. memo from acting director of army casualty and mortuary to dispose of group f remains from the attack on the pentagon through incineration. so it sounds like there's a memo that talks about it. then 7 august 2002 there is another. >> right. >> about remains. seems like not just anecdotal. there's paperwork that

directed that these be incinerated. >> well you can see where the paperwork is and you can go try to track it down but i'm telling you, i'm telling you that was not focus of this panel. this focus of the panel was to look forward, to see what was wrong, to correct what was wrong or make a forward-looking sort of recommendation about what needed to be fixed. we did not spend a great deal of time and effort and energy looking into what you're talking about. next question. >> sir, i'm sorry, but these are -- >> i'm going to the next question. >> aren't they -- >> it my report but it is not the focus of the report. next question. yes, sir. >> but they're do seem to be in this timeline a series of incidents that make responsible officials, military and civilians aware of problems or at least questionable activities at the mortuary. over a series of years. >> i will readily admit that

there were a series of investigations that took place within the mortuary that were command-directed inspections that we looked at and we concluded that the results of those inspections were not properly taken into account. in other words corrective actions were not taken. and with a dysfunctional isolated chain of command they could not have which is the point i would like to come back to. i appreciate the fact that you are looking deep but we didn't look deep. we spent 5% of our time looking back for information. that was not our charge. our charge was to look forward. and we think that the recommendations we have made, which is really what i would like to talk to you about, are recommendations that will fix the problem and restore the confidence. yes, ma'am? >> one thing i did want to

ask is about the lack of oversight. >> go ahead. >> not to go too far into the past but you know, you look at this timeline. there are a number of events. why do you think it has taken so long for there to be, for there to be a sort of come to jesus moment? do you think there are any factors that will keep that chain of command from being tightened? >> we think the recommendations we made will strengthen the chain of command and will give it the oversight that's necessary. there weren't proper memorandums of organizational understanding between the various organizations. the chain of command was not really a chain of command. what the chain of command they adopted in 2008 did is essentially was isolate the command. it was an isolated orphan command i would call it that really didn't have proper oversight and whenever you put things in staff channels as opposed to command channels you're asking for

trouble and that trouble identified through the whistle-blowers coming public and the various investigations that were undertaken were, clearly happening and think it is primarily the result of lack of command oversight. yes, sir. >> general, julian barnes from "the wall street journal" from my reading of the earlier reports a lot of the problems of the missing portions were due to the seams and interaction between the medical examiners and afmao. >> correct. >> why not a more radical chain of command recommendation from your subcommittee whereby you have a single commander at the for the mortuary who is in charge of both groups? >> we looked at at possibility of a joint command and or a joint agency. but you have to understand that the armed forces

medical examiner is not completely dueing work on -- doing work on fallen troops. it is working for the broader medical command and armed forces of the united states. does toxicology, dna, does dna for the entire armed forces of the united states. it does not only autopsies which is where it impacts here with afmao but that is probably only 10%. so we thought about, i mean that at first glance you say really we need to put a joint command in here. then when we look at it, we say no, we need to keep the medical line of command to the armed forces medical examiner. then they need to strengthen the air force services command line to the air force mortuary affairs office. we need to make the service liaison officers and elements come under the supervision of the department of the army for minimum standards of training, manning, tour

length, et cetera. and they need to be made what i would call tactical command under the afmao commander. now the, the strengthening of the of command here also comes from properly resourcing what goes on in usdpnr where the current person is one, the current office that supervises mortuary affairs is one person deep and unable to really handle these very, very serious and difficult operational issues that come up and then you, so you have to strengthen that office. then you have to strengthen the army's executive agency oversight. you have to up the level of directive authority within the centralized joint mortuary affairs board. radical surgery is liable to break it worse. so i think that we have given a path ahead here that is very important to fixing

the lack of oversight from a technical, technical manner as well as command matter. yes, ma'am? >> can we have a little bit more recommendation body, cold body cremation should not be conducted at dpm? if it seems i'm reading correctly, seems there was incident a master sergeant cremated there september 2011 and was not put in a hardwood casket. basically in cardboard. >> right. >> so, i mean, obviously that incident is troubling but how did you make the leap from that to no cremations? >> well there's a new crematorium that was built there at dover and that crematorium, there have been times when families have asked for the their fallen family member, the person, that is authorized to direct disposition, to be cremated at that facility and we

think that it's a bad idea for the department of defense to be in the cremation business especially at such a quick point in the notification process to families. and that families make that decision once the body has been turned over to them for their disposition. because sometimes a mother may want the body cremated, the father may not. these are filled with all sorts of difficult sorts of issues for the family. so we think it best only use them, only use that crematorium absolutely when necessary. >> crematorium was put in right after the allegations there were animal remains, right? was it, so relatively new, is that the one? >> it is a brand new one, yeah. >> yes, ma'am. >> there is a couple things on page a-4. >> we'll come back to you, craig. >> there is whole bunch stuff like investigations found two civilian bodies were used to test

crematorium. >> what? >> used to test, test, new crematorium at afmao. that seems odd, civilian bodies were used to test the crematorium? >> i don't know exactly how that, how that transpired. i would say that there are probably agreements between, between mortuary services people that are out there. i don't know that was a government decision. i don't know that they were used to test without the none or permission of the families. i think that they had full knowledge and permission of whoever was authorized to make disposition of that particular set of remains. >> the other thing was -- >> we don't think it's a good idea. >> can i follow up on there are other parts here? >> sure. >> when the air force released the initial investigation most of the focus was last couple years but if you look at these records you have here, problems at the mortuary go

way back to things we didn't know about. >> yeah. >> i mean there's a lot here. >> i don't know that you don't know about them. i can't say that. i can only say we included this because we thought that the timeline was important for understanding of what went on there. and the timeline goes back pretty far. >> but, september 26th, 2005, there was an investigation that found that human remains were misrouted in a fashion constituting derelict shun of duty. >> right. >> do you know anything about that? >> look, i'm going to tell you once again what we did and what we didn't do, okay? what we didn't do is go back and look detailed, through the records to try to determine whether or not something had gone wrong there. we knew that something had gone wrong. our charge was to look at was going on now, figure out how to move it forward, and

fix it. there is no doubt that you are correct. there were many things that were going wrong there because of lack of command and technical oversight. and policy oversight. and coordination. so, craig, you get the last question. >> thank you, sir. i appreciate that. >> you're welcome. >> same question elizabeth had, i guess i don't understand you're saying you are looking forward but not back but your appendix e, these are all events, incidents, investigations, allegations of fraud, settlement to the spouse of a marine for mental anguish of $25,000. these are not been made public. so you know naturally -- >> i don't know that they haven't been made public. >> i can tell you they haven't been made public. >> right. >> we would like to know more information about them because -- >> because it is not our -- >> your panel has records of it because it is in your report. >> we have records we received from the air force that we published there.

>> are you refusing to release these records outlined in your appendix? >> the report has been released. >> i'm asking for these memos and -- >> i have no authority to release anything. you will have to go to the air force to ask about those particular questions. but i'm telling you, in conclusion that you need to focus on these recommendations about whether or not they will strengthen accountability at afmao and throughout the entire mortuary affairs system. i think they will. i think they will strengthen command oversight. they will strengthen technical oversight. they will strengthen training. they will strengthen accountability and coordination between organizations. and they will lay the groundwork that this will never happen again and it will adopt a policy of zero defects. historically, craig, which is not my mission, historically you will have it ask the question elsewhere. i can only say historically that there were significant problems there.

>> could i? >> yes, david. >> as a obviously experienced military officer, were you shocked by the fact that this happened and what, department already said was a, was a top priority to treat the fallen with -- how could it have happened? >> david, i'm not shocked. i have been in the armed forces of the united states for a long time. i've seen just about anything that can be scene. so i'm not shocked but are these sorts of revelations that you consider to be revelations, are they completely explainable? i think they probably are. and i would say of the vast number of cases that come through the port mortuary, there are people doing the right thing 99% of the time. we're talking about the 1% of the time when things didn't go right. and because there was no proper command oversight, we

didn't really have the ability to get down and look at the organization and figure out how to fix it. i think what my panel did was provide a guide path for the secretary of defense to fix those things that are wrong. and i think that my panel did a very good job in doing that. i appreciate the fact that you may regard some of these things as being revelatory. i did not. i regarded them as issues that happen in an organization that didn't have the proper mechanisms necessary to correct them. and they happened too many times. that's why we're making these recommendations here. so i very much enjoyed that. i, i don't think you will see me again. but i do appreciate the fact that this is a very important issue for the country. look, it's a about confidence, right? confidence has been lost in the ability of these organizations to care properly for our fallen.

we must restore that confidence. the people that are out there that are doing the work are good people, honest people, hard-working patriotic people who don't mean to do the wrong thing. they are constantly trying to do the right thing but it takes more than them at mortuary to fix it. takes oversight from above that flows all the way through the chain of command that. is what is weak and that is what needs to be fixed. thanks. >> thank you. . .

radical leader harry reid spoke this morning about negotiations under way on the senate floor. >> set aside at the request of senator pryor and alexander a good number station took place on the senate floor. senator pryor and senator alexander are exemplary in trying to work things out. they are good legislators and understand no side gets in their way. they have been here a long time. died have been fortunate to get a piece of legislation passed that i sponsored and worked

toward but i never had a piece of legislation that i introduced that wound up with a piece of legislation, always interchanges. that is the legislative process. that is what senator pryor and senator alexander talked about yesterday. they talked about the need to bring bills to the floor. they focused on appropriation bills and rightfully so. i am a long-term member of the probations committee. we understand the importance of working on these bills. in the last number of years we made up individual appropriation bill on rare occasions. we have done these on the bus and manybus and attracted away from that. the framework made last night

was important. republican leader and i have talked individually, personally, away from everyone about the need to get this done for the integrity of the senate and the speech last night really helped the republican leader and i want to get done. we need the agreement of senate republicans and democrats and work together to continue this important work and they talk about appropriation bills. senator warner, senator hagan, senator pryor and senator isaacson joined senator alexander. it was a significant number of senators who talked about wanting to do the same thing. i commend and applaud their work. >> i would like to -- we have negotiated the top line for the discretionary spending for those

coming fiscal years. that process is normally done by passage of a budget by the house and senate and reconciliation between the two bodies on the top line but we already have that number. i went to second one-the majority leader said. no reason for this institution not to move forward with an appropriations process that avoids what we have done so frequently under both parties for years and years. continuing resolutions or omnibus appropriations. we have an opportunity to avoid that this year. the basic work of congress. i just want to second with the majority leader said and congratulate senator alexander and senator pryor for their leadership on this issue and hope we can join together and do the work of government this year so i commend the majority leader and associate myself with his

confidence. >> the senate may resume debate on the transportation bill when the senate returns to session at 2:15. live coverage when they return on c-span2. a number of cabinet and federal agency heads are on capitol hill explaining their budget requests to assorted congressional committees. secretary of state goes before the senate foreign relations committee this afternoon. this is primary day in michigan and arizona. mitt romney is favored to win in arizona. boulder showing a tight race in michigan against rick santorum. newt gingrich spending the day campaigning in georgia. ron paul is focusing on caucus states. two live primary results coverage tonight on the c-span networks. >> this particular phone only brings in a serious crisis. it is in the hand of a man who has proven himself responsible?

vote for president johnson on november 3rd. bush and dukakis on crime. bush supports the death penalty for first-degree murder. dukakis not only opposes the death penalty but allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. one was willie horton. >> the accusation john kerry made against the veterans who served in vietnam was devastating. >> randomly shot at civilians. >> recalled point to an average commercial or two or three or four but on average negative commercials are more likely to be factually correct and negative commercial farm more likely to talk about the issue is. >> will 2012 go down as the most negative campaign cycle in history? in america foundation discusses the current and past political campaigns and their impact on american culture. watch this on line at the c-span video library. watch and clip and share. it is what you want when you

want. >> even a person who is a senator, even a person who is president of the united states faces a predicament when they talk about race. they face all sorts of things. they face the fact that there are personal numbers of americans who are racially prejudiced. they face the fact that a much larger portion of the american populace wants to deny the reality of race even now. >> send a harvard law professor and former law clerk to justice thurgood marshall randall kennedy of racism, politics and the obama administration. the road scholar's the author of five books and he will take your call, e-mails and tweets live on in depth on booktv on c-span2. >> president obama said without the $80 billion rescue package for u.s. automakers, gm and

chrysler wouldn't exist today. autoworkers in washington, he also said republicans who left the auto industry, quote, out to dry. mr. obama's results to a group of autoworkers are half an hour. >> ladies and gentlemen, we introduce the president of the united states. please welcome uaw president bob king. [applause] >> thank you! i am so honored and we at the uaw are so honored today. we know that when our backs were against the wall, when autoworkers and steelworkers, jobs and lives were threatened, when all the polls were against

us, when we had republicans attacking us, dr. martin luther king said you can tell the quality of a person and i paraphrase the quality of of a leader of where they stand in times of adversity and struggle. our next speaker stood behind us and save our jobs and save our industry and when our sisters and brothers in the public sector were being attacked, this president stood, spoke out, stood for workers' rights to collective bargaining and the importance of workers and unions to our democracy. sisters and brothers, i want to give you our friend, our brother, the champion of all workers and working people in

america, the president of the united states, president barack obama. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> are you ready to stand and fight for the great america with this president? [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause]

>> four more years! four more years! four more years! four more years! >> how is it going, uaw? [cheers and applause] >> it is good to be with some autoworker's today. everybody have a seat. get comfortable. go ahead and get comfortable. i am going to talk for a little bit. first of all, i want to say thank-you to one of the finest leaders we have been labor, bob king. give it up for bob. i want to thank the international executive board and all of you for having me here today. it is a great honor. i brought along somebody who is proving to be one of the finest secretaries of transportation in

our history, ray lahood. give him a big round of applause. [applause] >> it is always an honor to spend time with folks who represent the working men and women of america. unions like yours fought for jobs and opportunity for generations of american workers. unions like yours helped build the arsenal of democracy, the defeat of fascism and won world war ii. it is unions like yours that forged the american middle class, great engine of prosperity, the greatest world has ever known. you guys helped to write the american story. today you are busy writing a proud new chapter. you are reminding us no matter how tough times get, americans

are tough. no matter how many punches we take we don't give up. we get up. we fight back. we move forward. we come out on the other side stronger than before. that is what you have shown. you are showing us what is possible in america. i am here to say you make me proud. you make me proud. think about what you and workers represents, have fought for. a few years ago nearly one in five autoworkers were having to pay for it. one in five. 4,000 jobs across this industry

vanished before i took office. as the financial crisis hit us full force, america faced a hard and unimaginable reality, two of the big three automakers. they were on the brink of liquidation. a heart beat of american manufacturing was flat lining. we had to make a choice. with the economy in free fall there were no private investors in companies out there willing to take a chance on the auto industry. somebody was lining up to give you guys -- anyone in the financial sector can tell you that. so we could have kept giving billions of taxpayer dollars to

automakers without demanding changes or accountability or return that were needed. that was one option. that was so damning in the long term sooner or later we would have run out of money. could have just kicked the problem down the road. the other option was to do absolutely nothing. let these companies fail. you will recall there were some politicians who said we should do that. some even said we should let detour to go bankrupt. you remember that. think about what that choice would have meant for this company if we had turned our backs on you. america thrown in the towel and gm and chrysler had gone under.

suppliers, distributors would have died off. than even ford could have gone down as well. production shutdown. factories shut. once proud companies chopped up and sold off for scrap. and all of you, the men and women who built these companies with your own hand would have been hung out to dry. more than 1 million americans across the country would have lost their jobs in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the great depression. in communities across the midwest would have been another great depression. think about all the people who depend on you. not just your family but the school teachers. small-business owners, the server at the diner who knows your order or the bartender who is waiting for you to get up. that is right. [applause]

their livelihood worth taking as well. you know what else was at stake? called many of you work the assembly line had a father or grandfather or a mother who worked on that same line? [applause] how many of you have sons and daughters who said i would like to work at the plant too? [applause ] these jobs are worth more than just a paycheck. it is pride. they are taking it to a middle-class life. they make it possible for you to own a home and raise kids and maybe send them to college. [applause] give you a chance to retire with dignity and respect. these companies are worth more than just the cars they build.

they are a symbol of american innovation and know how. they are the source of manufacturing. if that is not worth fighting for what is worth fighting for? [applause] we were not going to do nothing. we won't give up on your jobs and your family at your community's. so in exchange for help we demanded responsibility. we said to the auto industry you have to truly change. not pretend you are changing. thanks to outstanding leadership like bob king we got labor-management to settle the difference. [applause] we got the industry to reach land restructure and everybody involved had skin in the game. it wasn't popular. it wasn't what i ran president

to do. that wasn't originally what i thought was going to be doing as president. but i did run to make tough calls and do the right thing. [applause] no matter what the politics were. and i want you to know -- you know why i knew this rescue would succeed? you want to know? it wasn't because of anything the government did. it wasn't because of anything management did. it was because i believe in you. i believe in the american worker. and i will make that bet any day of the week. [cheers and applause]

and now three years later, three years later that that is paying off. not just paying off for you but for america. three years later the american auto industry is back. gm is back on top as the no. one automaker of the world. [cheers and applause] the highest profit in its 100 year history. chrysler is growing faster in america than any other car company. [cheers and applause] ford is investing billions in

american plants. american factories. plants to bring thousands of jobs back to america. all told the entire industry has added 200,000 new jobs over the past two years. 200,000 new jobs and here is the best part. not just building cars again but building better cars. after three decades of inaction we are putting in place the fuel economy standards for our cars and pickups. that means the cars you build will average nearly 55 miles per gallon by next decade. almost double what they get today. that means, folks, every time they fill up, they are going to be saving money. they have to fill up every two weeks. that save the typical family

$8,000 a pop overtime. it will cut oil consumption by two million barrels a day. we have to import less oil while selling more cars all-around world. [applause] thanks to the bipartisan trade agreements are signed into law with human mind, working with you there will soon be new cars in the streets of south korea imported from detroit and toledo and chicago. [cheers and applause] and today i talked about this in the state of the union. i am printing a trade enforcement unit that will bring

the full resources -- on the investigation and we will counter any fair trading practices around the world including countries like china. america has the best workers in the world when the playing field is level. we will make sure the playing field is level. [cheers and applause] because america always -- when the playing field is level. because everyone came together and worked together. the most high-tech, fuel efficient, good-looking cars in the world are once again designed and engineered and built knocked in europe, not in asia but right here in the

united states of america. i have seen it myself. i have seen it myself. i have seen it in chrysler's north plant in deep forests where a new shift of 1,000 workers came on two years ago and another thousand slated next year. i have seen it in my home town the poor chicago assembly for workers building a new explorer and selling it in dozens of countries around world. there you go. i have seen it at gm's plant in ohio where workers got their jobs back to build the chevy cobalt. gm's plant in detroit where i got a brand new chevy volt fresh off the lines even though secret service wouldn't let me drive it. but i like sitting in it.

it was nice. i bet it drives real good. and five years from now when i am not president anymore i will buy one. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] that is right. [chanting] >> four more years! four more years! four more years! four more years! >> i know our batch was a good one because i have seen it.

but here is the thing. you don't have to take my word for it. chrysler workers -- who were brought on to make sure the newest high-tech transmission and fuel-efficient engines are made in america. good gm workers in tennessee whose jobs were saved from being sent abroad. ask the ford workers in kansas city coming on to make the f 150, america's best-selling truck. a more fuel-efficient trucks. and you ask all the suppliers who are expanding and hiring in communities that rely on them if america's investment in you with a good bet. they will tell you the right answer. and who knows? maybe the naysayers will finally come around and say standing by america's workers was the right thing to do. maybe -- because i have got to read knit it has been a funny.

to watch some of these folks completely try to rewrite history now that you're back on your feet. [applause] the same folks who said if we went forward with our plan to rescue before you can kiss the american automotive industry goodbye. now they are saying we were right all along. [applause] you have folks saying the real problem is what we disagree with was the worker. they made out like bandits. saving the auto industry was about paying back -- really? even by the standards of this town that is a load of you know what. [cheers and applause]

700,000 retirees had to make sacrifices for health care benefits. a lot of you saw your hours reduce or pay or wages scaled back. you gave up some of your rights as workers. promises were made over the years that you gave up for the sake and survival of this industry. you want to talk about sacrifice? you made sacrifice. this wasn't an easy thing to do. let me tell you. i keep on hearing these folks talk about values all the time. hard work is a value. looking after one another is a value. the idea that we are all in it together and i my brother's keeper and sister's keeper, that is a value. [applause]

they are out there talking about you like you are some special interests that needs to be beaten down. since when are hard working men and women who are putting in a hard day's work a special interest? since when is the ideas that we look out for one another a bad thing? i remember my old friend ted kennedy used to say what is it about working men and women they find so offensive? this notion that we should have let the auto industry die and should pursue anti worker policies in hopes that unions

like yours will buckle and unravel is part of that same old you are on your own philosophy that says we should leave everybody to fend for themselves. led the most powerful do whatever they please. they think the best way to boost the economy is to rollback reforms we put into place and prevent another crisis, let wall street right rules again. the best way to help families is rolled back the reforms we passed already lowering costs for millions of americans. they're want to go back to the days when the insurance companies could design your coverage or jack up your rates or however they please. they think we should keep cutting taxes for those at the very top additional for people like me. even though we don't need it. just so they can keep paying lower tax rates than their secretaries. let me tell you something.

not to put too final point on it, they are wrong. they are wrong. that is the philosophy that got us into this mess. we can't afford to go back to it. not now. we have a lot of work to do. we have a long way to go before everyone who wants a good job can get a good job. we have a long way to go before middle class america fully regain that sense of security that has been slipping away since long before this recession hit. we have got something to show. all of you show what is possible when we pull together. over the last three years our businesses have added 3.7 million new jobs. manufacturing is coming back for the first time since the 1990s. companies are bringing jobs back from overseas. the economy is getting stronger.

the recovery is speeding up. now it is time to keep our foot on the gas additional not on the brakes and i won't settle for a country where just a few do really well and everyone else is struggling to get by. [cheers and applause] we are fighting for an economy where everybody gets a fair shot. where everybody does their fair share. where everybody plays by the same set of rules. we are not going to go back to an economy that is all about outsourcing and bad debt and phony profits. we are fighting for an economy that is built to last. build on things like education and energy and manufacturing. making things. not just buying things. making things the rest of the

world want to buy. and restoring the values that made this country bring hard work and fair play. a chance to make it if you really try. responsibility to reach back and help somebody else be personal not just you. that is to we are. that is what we believe in. [cheers and applause] i've visited chrysler's jefferson point year-and-a-half ago. the day i visited the, some of the employees had won the lottery. they have won the lottery. you might think that they would be kicking back and retiring. no one would fault them for

that. building cars is tough work. but that is not what they did. the guy who bought -- funny you ask. [laughter and applause] the guy who bought the winning ticket was of proud uaw member working on the line. he used some of his winnings to buy his wife a car that he built because he is proud of his work. [applause] then he bought a brand new american flags for his home town because he is proud of his country. [applause] and he and the other winners are still clocking in at that plant today because they are proud of the work their co-workers play in america's

commitment. that is what america is about. america is not just looking out for yourself. it is not just about greed. it is not just about trying to climbed to the very top and keep everybody else down. when our assembly lines grind to a halt we get them going again. when somebody else falters we try to give him a hand out. because we know we are all in it together. i got my start standing with working folks who lost their jobs. folks who lost their hope because steel plants closed down. i didn't like the idea that they didn't have anybody fighting for them. same reason i got into this business and the same reason i am here today. i am driven by the same belief, that everybody, everybody should

deserve a chance. so i promise you this. as long as you have an ounce of fight left in me i will have a pound of fight left in me. we are going to keep on fighting to make our economy stronger, to put our friends and neighbors back to work faster, to give our children even more opportunity to make sure the united states of america remains the greatest nation on earth. thank you, uaw. god bless the work you do. god bless the united states of america. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪

>> this is primary day in michigan and arizona. republican presidential candidate mitt romney is favored to win in arizona. polls show a tight race in michigan against rick santorum. newt gingrich is spending the day campaigning in georgia. ron paul is focusing on caucus states. you can see live primary results coverage on the c-span network. >> louisiana governor bobby jindal will reveal his proposal for balancing the state budget for the next fiscal year. of budget $900 million in the red. the foreclosure is cloudy and 47 degrees at the airport, 38 in minden. your listening to shreveport news and weather news radio 710. >> this weekend booktv and american history tv explore the

history of literary culture of shreveport, louisiana saturday starting at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2, author gary joyner on the union army at failure in louisiana from one dam blunder from beginning to end. the red river campaign of 1874 and a look at the 200,000 books of the john smith nobel collection at the l s u shreveport archive. that a walking tour of shreveport with neil johnson. on american history tv on c-span3 at 5:00 eastern, a look at the base's role on 9/11 plus a history of the b-52 bomber. visit the founding fathers autograph collection at the university state exhibit in the pot heritage center, medical treatment and medicine during the civil war. shreveport, louisiana this weekend on c-span2 and 3. in number of cabinet and federal agency heads on capitol hill this afternoon explaining their

budget requests to assorted congressional committees. secretary of state hillary clinton goes before the senate foreign relations committee and 2:00 eastern. you can see live coverage on c-span2. this morning pentagon officials explained the defense department budget. here is a brief look. >> this is a challenge for all of us. we face the circumstance in which we are borrowing $0.40 of every dollar we spend. our revenue is at or near a 60 year low in terms of share of the economy. our spending is at or near a 60 year high. in terms of a share of spending. our gross debt is 100% of gross domestic product. these are hard facts. secretary leon panetta having worked with you before, as i

indicated earlier, being an ally of your efforts to get a balanced budget before and last time we actually have seen success and accomplishing that, you know better than almost everyone in this town, better than anyone in this country how really hard it is to get the job done. what is always interesting to me is how many speeches are given and how many brave statements are made when hard choices are made, how few people left at the table. because it is not popular. one of the hard realities is doing what has to be done to reform entitlements, it is not popular, to reform of the revenue system. that creates its own challenge. and to face up to every part of the federal government. there's a constituency for every

dollar. nobody knows that better than you do. let's start with this question. the budget control act asked for $487 billion in over ten years. that is in the president's budget. the budget control act also called for a sequester if the special committee did not come up with a specified level of savings. the special committee failed. that is the hard reality we are left with. they did not succeed. so we are left with a sequester which calls on additional savings out of defense of -- general dempsey used $500 billion. our number is different but almost the same. the question is this. we have heard you loud and clear. the sequester goes too far. is there a place in between? i say this and you want to

negotiate against yourself. i understand that. i was part of the simpson bowles commission. it had overall savings almost as big as the sequestered amount in addition to the other savings in the budget control act. other bipartisan commissions in trying to have called similar level of savings and i understand again, loud and clear, we hear you. that from your perspective goes too far. let me understand, no additional savings can be derived beyond those that are imposed in the first budget control act requirements? >> mr. chairman, having been through this process a great deal, $487 billion, almost half

a trillion dollars is the largest amount ever included in a budget agreement or some at that i ever worked on. and it is up big number and yet are thought it was very important to be able to work with the service chiefs and others to develop a strategy that would be able to implement those savings in a way that would still protect the force we need for the future and i think we have done that. we have tried to do this in a responsible way. what i need to have in order to make this work is the degree of stability with regards to the defense budget and as to where we are going over the next ten years particularly in light of the threats we are confronting. this is not like the past. we have some significant threats that are still out there in the world. any one of which could have us in a new conflict.

any one of which demands that we have a presence in the world. so my view is what we have presented here is strong budget. it is fiscally responsible. it sets the right path for the future. if at some point in the future, threats reduce, if there are areas of efficiency we could gain additional savings, we will look at those additional savings but for now what we have put in place represents an important step that we should stick to. >> let me say to you i want to be very honest and direct. i don't know how to write a budget that achieve the kind of deficits and debt reduction that we need. and by the way i would go further than what the president has presented. i would go further than simpson bold. i tried to convince them to do

$6 trillion deficit reduction because we could balance the budget with that amount. there was not support on that commission for going that far. i think you know where i am coming from. i would like to achieve a balanced budget at the end of ten years given the level of debt that we have. fundamentally reform entitlements without fundamentally reforming the tax system and asking those who are best off among us who enjoy certain tax preferences, asking for additional defense savings. let me ask this. before the simpson bowles commission, top defense analyst appeared. i ask them about their assessment. one of the things they reminded us is 51% of all federal employees are at the department of defense. they also reminded us that did

not count contractors. when asking how many contractors can't give you a number. i said what is the range. and how many contractors are at the department of defense? >> we have limited data of equivalence, and full time equivalents. and multiplier effects. >> can you tell us what is the cost per soldier to maintain a soldier for a year in afghanistan? >> 850,000 per soldier. i would be careful with that number because there are fixed

costs built into that number and the decisions you make about those costs will affect it. >> we understand that. i say this to you. when people back home asked me and what i'd give the number i have had previously was $600,000 so it takes my breath away when dealing with $650,000. when i tell from $600,000 it takes their breath away. can you help us understand why that cost -- talking $850,000 a year per soldier. >> let me try. the major component of the extra cost in afghanistan are higher operating costs for weapons. when you are in a war you are on a higher tempo. that is a good part of the -- there are special pays and the laws and all these costs, the

import rise explosive devices and coalition's support payments. all of those are amortized into the 850. the 600,000 might be a close variable cost when you look at operating costs. your operating at a high tempo in a war zone. >> did it reflect variable costs. let me just say i have gone over five minutes. we will grow to senator sessions. i just want to conclude this round by saying i think at the end of the day before we are done it is not going to be possible, absent some other thing happening and goodness knows that could happen tomorrow so we all understand that but budgets have to be based on what we know at the time we write them. that we are going to have to

have additional savings if we are really going to deal with the death threats confronting the country. >> mr. chairman, can i just comment on that? look. this congress proposed as part of the budget control act of trillion dollars in savings on discretionary budgets. you can't meet the challenge you are facing in this country by continuing to go back on discretionary spending. that is less than a third of federal spending. if you are not dealing with the two thirds, that is in title and spending. if you are not dealing with revenues and you keep going back to the same place frankly you won't make it. you are going to hurt this country's security not only by cutting defense but discretionary spending that deals with quality of life in this country. >> couldn't agree with you more. i don't know what could be more clear.

you understand it because you have written budgets around here as have 5. is not possible. it is almost bizarre, the strategy has been so far. the spending that is going down and share of gdp. and don't go after the part of spending that is going up. we have to be honest with people. we have to help to understand what is the place where spending over time is rising dramatically. it is in the entitlement accounts. on the revenue side, the lowest it has been in 60 years.

this is reality talking. >> thank you. as we wrestle with the challenges, the discretionary -- this country has embarked on. >> you can see the rest of this hearing on video library c-span.org. now the second of two pentagon briefings dealing with military mortuary. >> the pentagon briefing room. the air force review panel, and the mortuary issue. secretary downie has brief operating remarks. i want to sell you that. doesn't give you a lot of time.

mr secretary? >> good afternoon. as you just heard from general abizaid the independent panel of the defense board provided the department of defense and the air force from its review of the corrective actions taken with respect to mortuary procedures that air force mortuary affairs operations at dover air force base. the panel was asked to review the effectiveness and propriety of the current policy processes and procedures that were put in place as a result of the air force inspector general investigation and make recommendations about additional changes that may be required. the men and women who serve at afmao recognize what a sacred mission is to serve our nation's fallen and their families. they have been working

diligently to correct deficiencies identified in the initial investigation and subsequent reviews. they will continue to do so as we implement the findings of the defense health board panel. the chief and i want to thank general abizaid and members of the panel for their candid review and assessment of afmao and recognizing improvements the air force has put in place. i would like to highlight some of the findings and recommendations proposed by the independent panel specific to the air force as well as actions i have directed to be implemented at afmao. i am directing that the afmao commander be given you see and j --ucmj a 40 to provide accountability as an essential tool in maintaining command and discipline. second, general schwartz and i

agree with the panel's recommendation for a better general officer command structure to oversee the afmao mission. we have begun discussions on where best to align general officer oversight. third we strongly endorse the need for detailed inspection program appropriate to afmao's mission. the air force inspection agency is already working with afmao to create the needed inspection criteria and the first inspection on the new program is scheduled to take place since june. afmao has conducted and will continue to conduct training exercises that cover the health and safety of their personnel. in addition afmao leadership will elicit support from their staff and national industry professionals to provide recommendations on training that

will be beneficial to our team. we support the panel's recommendation freestanding board of visitors including outside professionals who can oversee and advise afmao on the latest and best practices. addition the current afmao leadership is working with the national association of funeral directors to have them give recommendations on training that will be beneficial to our embalming team. we agree with the panel's recommendation to right size the afmao organization and build search capability to deal with larger incidents or contingencies should they occur. and undertaken and study this summer. all this work will be coordinated with our service partners consistent with deputy secretary of defense carter's and general dempsey's provision. these are representative of actions we have taken and others under way that will further

improve the operation that afmao in meeting the fallen commissions providing dignity, honor and respect to the fallen and care, service and support to their families. i also want to take this opportunity to provide you with an update on the review of the disciplinary action taken at the conclusion of the air force i t investigation and an update on the status and review of the office of special counsel's investigation into reprisal actions taken against some employee of dover porche mortuary. last december i have provided the secretary of defense and interim report addressing the disciplinary actions taken in response to the air force's ig investigation and allegations made with this closure. the report consisted of a

comprehensive summary of the disciplinary action taken to process used, illegal bases for the actions and the factual record used in determining appropriate action. the purpose of the report was to gather the facts to ensure there is a full and complete record of disciplinary actions stemming from the disclosure case. it was the first step in a three step process to conduct this review. the former official appointed to provide an independent session of the military and civilian disciplinary actions taken at afmao in response to the allegations and covered in the disclosure case have completed the review. reported mis that both the military and civilian disciplinary action this summer, in response to disclosure

allegations. on january 30th of the air force received separate office of special counsel investigation into potential -- against whistle-blowers at dover. it concluded the reprisals did in fact occur, this raised the need to consider additional disciplinary action. to take appropriate action, and expect that this work will be around mid march. and any action by civilian personnel would be coordinated with o f c. the air force issues the common belief in the importance of whistle-blowers report deficiencies in reprisal. it performed an important service to the air force and to the nation.

they continue at afmao and the air force working cooperatively with o f c to make appropriate corrections to their records. for route this review process, their fourth remains committed to this mission as a solemn obligation, and to its flawless execution. the professionals who work at afmao take this responsibility seriously and consider it a privilege. they're aggressively in short a high standards were met to provide dignity, and respect to the fallen. and owed to the families. at this time i will take your questions. >> secretary? >> regarding the report about

the 9/11 remains, several portions were cremated and incinerators and dispose of in alaska. the consideration of what was done at dover and when did the air force become aware of this and do you consider it inappropriate? >> we intend to take a full and complete look at the abizaid report. this is why the panel was put in place. our focus -- >> we will break away and take you live to the senate as they return from their party lunches. live coverage on c-span2. we will continue to show you the briefing live from the pentagon on c-span2. >> to move forward to move

place. the abizaid panel offers additional ideas on how we may improve performance and provide options. so our focus is on the recommendations in the abizaid panel. we intend to consider them fully but to focus today going forward, that is where we are focused. >> there are other deficiencies which to my knowledge have not been mentioned publicly. you consider this to be an inappropriate imposition of remains and when did you become aware of this? >> kevin had a chance to flee absorber all the findings or details in the abizaid report but they highlighted recommendations we have focused on implementing and our intention is to move forward from here. >> we must know because the air force would have participated in

this investigation where those 9/11 remains were disposed of. >> let me just say the chief and dry and the ig investigation we have undertaken today have not gone back into this period. >> that finding in the abizaid report that might have left some unidentified remains of 9/11 victims were disposed of at the dover mortuary. >> we haven't had a chance to review all the details and sources of material. that is why they were pulled together and that is why the panel was established to work through these issues. i think the history that the panel provides is a good context for a longstanding series of problems that challenges executing this mission so it

adds context to the recommendations the panel has made to improve our presence going forward. >> that is where we are focused. at a previous air force press conference we were told the record only went back to 2008 for a few years before that but somehow the abizaid panel has gotten access to records that go back substantially. how is that possible. >> not to say we haven't had a chance to review the details behind all the materials they put together. >> are you actually questioning what is in the report? you can confirm the records of your own air force? >> we haven't had a chance to review all the records of the panel and understand where the information came from. we will go into all of this in more depth going forward. >> whether you -- outlined in

the report is you don't know if it happened or you are not aware of it? >> the report before we did, we have those been on capitol hill the last four hours. we will go through the report ourselves. >> for whatever reason, perfectly logical but you have not until now been aware of this. >> that is what i was saying. >> be careful to answer -- >> can i just ask you. it is confusing to me. the army plays with mortuary operations. what is your understanding and what is that going to be as you move forward? >> this is why it is important we work with our service partners in this effort. there are four different organizations involved in supporting the afmao -- and the port mary operation in dover but

they supported that location by the armed forces medical examiner which is -- the army is the executive agent and that organization actuary reports to army medical command. in addition there is a joint personal effects -- organizations that manages the personal effects not bully of the fallen but winded personnel or other u.s. nationals or other operations in which u.s. personnel were unable to take ownership of their personal effects. there is that. that reports to a separate organization. and a fourth of the mission is service liaison officers who are

assigned by the army, navy, marine corps and air force to serve as liaisons to be a liaison with the family. those officers report to their respective services and get training that is different perhaps across services. the point of general abizaid's finding is there's more than one service involved in this work. there is an executive agent and a joint mortuary affairs board intended to oversee this work and develop the policies and procedures that provide commonality and coordination between these organizations as they perform mortuary work together. that is an important finding, a good description of what it takes to perform this mission. >> can i ask a quick follow-up?

the medical examiners -- could that possibly cause problems and confusion? they have been persisting -- >> may be the chief has the additional insights. i would say the activity level at dover and some of the issues, challenges we face in managing operations did relate to the change in organizational structure, arrival of the armed forces medical examiner mission changes there structured programs. afmao was busy during that period and here, unlike in a similar organization, where the county coroner is at one location and a funeral home is at another location these two organizations are side by side

and working the scenes and of the accountability remains with these two organizations. >> you have been looking at the whistle-blower complaints -- the review of the discipline. when you heard your earlier investigation, how far back did you ask people to look? are you satisfied with that? does the air force need to do a full accounting of the last decade of problems that afmao? >> the air force ig investigation and the oic investigations were based on allegations by whistle-blowers concerning current obligations -- operation that over. that is the focus. >> my question is do you think a fuller, backward historical accounting of the problems or

potential problems is necessary or is that counterproductive? >> we will make that judgment after we have a chance to take the full scope of the panel's record. >> let me clarify something. you mention the review team regarding whistle-blowers providing independent assessment. and you said they came back to you and the actions taken last summer were legal and appropriate and reasonable. did they come back to you? >> in the december/january timeframe. >> a number of people in congress are upset the air force has not taken stronger disciplinary action against supervisors at dover. you didn't fire anybody in the first round. other former officials told you what you did was appropriate. and it has taken another office of special counsel investigation

to find potential reprisal. where is that taken against whistle-blowers? derecognize seriousness of how whistleblowers are treated by their supervisors? >> no. the answer to that is no. the office of special counsel investigation on reprisals was conducted separately from the air force investigation so we have no inside knowledge of how that investigation would proceed or when it would conclude. but onic had a separate investigation going and when it delivered its results it may have additional action. >> could i get a clarification, mr secretary? understanding that perhaps you haven't had a chance to look at the abizaid report but in regard to the portion where it talks about remains from 9/11 from the pentagon and shanks ville were disposed of in a landfill, were

both of you totally unaware of that previously? did it take you by surprise? is this the first you are hearing of it or were you aware? >> this is new information. >> in your opening statement you called the handling of the nation's war dead a sacred mission and the abizaid report found there was inadequate command structure. you would know better than our but my experience is there is no adequate command structure. the people responsible think the leadership is not taking this seriously. and therefore it could lead to mistakes like this. can you speak to that? >> general abizaid's point is we did not have a commander working for a commander. and the arrangement we have had since the early part of 2009 has

the commander -- affairs office working with the staff officer in washington. that is not the ideal arrangement. the issue for us at the time was the significant enough -- and washington involvement and attention and there was a choice to put the supervision under our collective supervision. the point is there needs to be a command chain and we are certain -- we take the point that we're in the process of deciding where that numbered air force equivalent command should reside and what the arrangements would be.

these are matters of judgment. the recommendation is there needs to be not a commander working for staff officer but a commander working for commander and make that happen. >> do you believe the command structure was adequate? >> i think certainly during our tenure it was. and again made, the best advice john abizaid and his panel could provide. we accept that advice. i know the secretary of defense doesn't and act accordingly. >> general abizaid called it dysfunctional, isolated. who should have been responsible during your tenure for recognizing there was an oversight at dover at a place where there should be monumental respect and attention paid to it. >> you are looking at him.

me. i am responsible. >> i believe the point before if i might interject, given the circumstances, the sensitive nature of this mission and the sensitive nature of this mission and how it is conducted within -- within the confine the the small organization, a subset of what is a very small organization, we would not have heard of these problems were it not for the whistle-blowers going outside the organization. general abizaid's point was commander working for commander. and an option of where to report trouble up the chain of command. that is a little more

approachable or available than in is in washington. that was abizaid's thinking. >> mr. secretary, now that you have been -- >> see this briefing in its entire realign at c-span.org. back now live to the senate floor. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, would you state the pending business. the presiding officer: the pending business is s. 1813 which the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 1813 a bill to reauthorize federal-aid highway construction programs and for other purposes. mr. reid: mr. president, at the beginning of this month, in fact, february 7, i moved to proceed to the surface transportation bill that's before us today.

an extremely important bill, a bipartisan bill led by two fine senators, one quite progressive, the other very conservative. senators boxer and inhofe, the be chairman and ranking member of that important committee, environment and public works. this is a vital job-creating measure. the bill would create or maintain up to 2.8 million jobs. on february 9, two days after i moved to this bill, the senate voted 85-11 to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed. the bill has brought bipartisan support. but immediately after the senate moved to the bill on february 9, senator blunt asked unanimous consent that it be in order to offer his amendment on contraception and women's health. i was stunned. i couldn't believe this. i said what's going on here? i objected at the time, i didn't see why this surface transportation jobs bill was the appropriate place for an amendment on contraception and

women's health. but the republican leader and others on the republican side of the aisle made it very clear the senate is not going to be able to move forward on this important surface are transportation bill unless we vote on contraception and women's health. the republican leader said it on national tv. on "face the nation" senator mcconnell said -- and i quote --"the issue will not go away" -- end of quote. so, mr. president, i believe it's vital to get this jobs bill done. what's standing in the way is republicans' insistence on having a vote on a measure that would deny women access to health services like contraception and even prenatal screenings. after discussing it with numerous senators i decided we should set up a vote on contraception and women's health. we'll have a vote on this blunt amendment on thursday. after that we hope to be able to work out an agreement to have

votes on a number of nongermane amendments on each side and we'll have maybe we'll need some side by sides, the republicans may need some side by sides on our amendments. that's fine. let's move forward. the managers have made tremendous progress on clearing more than 25 agreed-to amendments. i believe this process with the most constructive way to move the bill forward. i hope that we can put this in --this will help us be placed in a position to work through the complete transportation bill by the end of next week. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that it be in order for the blunt amendment number 1520 could to be called n thursday, march 1, after consultation with the republican leader, the senate proceed to vote in relation to the blunt amendment. further that no other amendments be in order prior to the vote in relation to the blunt amendment.

the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mrs. boxer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: as the majority leader is leaving the floor, i'm just pleased that he's decided to take us forward on this highway bill. and he has something more to add. mr. reid: i failed to call up the blunt amendment. i'd like to do that. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada mr. reid proposes amendment 1520 to amendment 1730. mr. reid: ask for the reading of the amendment be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: i ask unanimous consent my remarks not interfere with the free flow of thought from the majority leader and that my remarks begin after his final comments here on this bill. the presiding officer: without

objection. mrs. boxer: thank you so much. so where do we stand? we're in a situation in the 21st century where in order to move forward on a highway bill that funds our highways, our roads, our bridges, our transit systems, in order to move forward on that jobs bill, where 2.8 million jobs are at stake in this great nation, we have to have a vote on birth control. i just want to say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, what are you thinking? but if this is what you want to do, fine. and i want to make it clear to the people who are listening that the blunt amendment not only would say that any insurance company and any employer for any reason could deny coverage to their

employees, it's not just about birth control. it's any service. now, mr. president, you serve proudly on the health committee, and i guess it's called the help committee now. and you were very instrumental in working through the essential services that are covered, the preventive services that are covered, and it's very important that we note what those are. we have a list of the essential services and the preventive services. and what i'm going to do is read them and as i read them, i want people who are listening to this to think about whether these services are important and to understand that under the blunt amendment any one of these services can be denied. by any employer, any insurance company, for any reason. so i'm going to list these services.

emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health treatment, preventive and wellness services, pediatric services, prescription drugs, ambulatory patient services, rehabilitative services and devices, and laboratory services. that's the categories of essential health benefits that this senate voted to make sure are covered under insurance plans. that's the law. the blunt amendment would allow any insurer and any employer to deny any of these services for any reason. all they have to say is they have a moral objection. so let's take maternity and newborn care. if somebody works for you and

they're not married, and they are pregnant and are having this child, you can say from now on i'm not covering anybody who works for me who isn't married. that's an example, because i have a moral objection. mental health treatment, you could say i don't consider this a disease. i think if god decided that somebody has mental health problems, that's just the way it is. i deny that. it goes on and on. emergency services, if an employer believes that if you have a heart attack, it's god's will. that's their moral belief. that's it. they can deny that kind of coverage. now we go to preventive health, and i'm going to read these. the blunt amendment would also say that any employer, any insurance company can deny any of these benefits to anybody at

any time. so listen to these services, mr. president, which came again out of your committee here. breast cancer screenings, maybe an employer doesn't believe that's necessary. they could deny it. cervical cancer screenings, hepatitis a and b vaccines. measles, mumps vaccines. there is controversy over vaccines. somebody could say i have a moral problem. i'm not going to offer these vaccines in my plan. colorectal cancer screenings. mr. president, we found out that those save lives, a huge number of lives. they say the death rates are going down from colorectal cancer screenings by 50%. an employer or insurance company could deny that kind of screening. diabetes screening, cholesterol screening, blood pressure screening, obesity screening, tobacco cessation, autism

screening. hearing screening for newborns, sickle cell screening for newborns, floor ride supplements, tuberculosis screening, flu vaccines for children and the elderly, contraception. that's what started all this. contraception. by the way, 15% of women who take contraceptives take it to prevent cancer, to prevent debilitating monthly pain. and it is even taken to prevent serious skin problems that are very debilitating. but no mention of that in the blunt amendment. no, no. h.i.v. screening, s.t.d. screening, h.p.v. testing, breast feeding support, domestic violence screening and gestational diabetes screening, which is the kind of diabetes you get, some women get when they are pregnant.

here's where we are. the blunt amendment would take this list of preventive health benefits, this list of essential health benefits and send a very clear, unequivocal message to every insurer in this country and every employer and says regardless of any other laws, if you decide you have a moral objection or religious objection, you do not have to offer this coverage. remember what we're talking about here. we're talking about coverage. we're not saying that people have to do all these things. if i have an objection to doing any of these things, as an employee, i don't have to do it but i have coverage if i decide to do it. that's the beauty of the health care bill that we passed. it says here's essential health benefits. here's preventive health benefits. employers and insurers, you have

to offer this coverage. if people want to take it, they can. and what will happen is good. now, when you hear the other side describe the blunt amendment, they will not tell you what it is. but i have a very clear take on what it is because i've printed it out, mr. president. and here it says "a health plan shall not be considered to have fail to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection a or preventive health services described in section 2713 if they decide they have a moral or religious objection." that's the basis of it. and so you take that and you say okay, here are the essential health benefits. they no longer have any meaning. here is the list of preventive health benefits, and those are at the whim of the employer, the

whim of the insurance company. and it is really, it's disturbing. you know, mr. president, you have some great career in your life, and you're a great senator now. and before that, you told a lot of great stories and a lot of great jokes. and i have to tell you that jon stewart took this issue on and said, i'll tell you something, i love the blunt amendment because he says i'm an employer and i believe that humor is the best medicine, he said. humor is the best medicine, he said. so, he said, so, that's what i'm going to do. he said i have an example here. and then this guy comes on to the stage with a very bad cold and flu, and he's sneezing and he says, mr. stewart, do i have to have another treatment now? and he says, yes, and he takes a

seltzer bottle and he sprays it all over the guy. that was his treatment because it was funny and he was supposed to laugh and that was supposed to cure this person. and he said not another treatment! in the darkest moment, one finds consolation and humor. but just think about, there are people who believe and have a strong moral and religious conviction that they don't want to take medicine. they just believe they're in the hands of god. and i personally respect it 100%. and people died for their right to have that view, and i think that's appropriate. we should respect religion. everybody's religion. so the way to deal with that is if that individual doesn't want to ever be treated, that's their choice. but, frankly, if they put a child's life at risk, who has cancer -- and we've had cases like this in america, where a

parent said i don't believe in medicine and a child could be cured with some cancer treatment, people have stepped in and said we're going to make sure the child gets treatment. so all we're saying in our health care bill is here's the list of essential health services and preventive health services that scientists and being doctors have told us will save -- scientists and doctors told us will save our families pain and suffering and we make them available to the insurer and employer. people don't have to take them but they're available. under the blunt amendment, if your boss happens to be a person that doesn't believe in medicine, he can just say, sorry, i'm not a believer, and you can -- you can have an insurance plan that may have nothing behind it. no services, none of these services that we work so hard to put into the law. so, it is stunning that in this

year we would be standing here on a highway bill anticipating a vote on thursday on an amendment that has to do with women's health. there's a lot of concern out there, because we saw when this whole thing started that there was a hearing in the house of representatives. do we have a picture of that with us? where they had a panel on women's health. they had a panel that dealt with, especially access to birth control. not one woman was on the panel, on that panel. and the men decided that it was wrong that women should have access to birth control without a co-pay. even when the doctors and the scientists said it is so important when our families are

planned. what happens? there are fewer abortions. it's not even arguable. fewer abortions. i would think we could be in agreement on that. fewer problems for our families, economic problems, when they plan their families. now if you don't want to plan your family, that's just fine. you don't have to. take that coverage. you don't have to take that contraception. so the president, in his decision, i thought struck a great compromise. what he said was because the experts, the medical experts, the institute of medicine told us that contraception is a very important choice for people, because 15% of them use it not just for birth control but to fight disease -- cancer and cysts on their ovaries and such, because that's important we put

it in this list of essential benefits, preventive benefits. but if you're a church, you don't have to offer it to your employees. that's what the president said. and there are 335,000 religious institutions that are exempted from having to offer this through insurance. the religious affiliated hospitals and universities were uncomfortable because they wanted to be able to not be directly connected to the contraceptions, and the president struck what i thought was a really good compromise. he said third party. almost everyone applauded it. catholic charities applauded it, mr. president. the catholic health association applauded it. they represent thousands of providers. catholics united applauded it. and the bishops were still

unhappy. but the institutions that provide the service felt the president struck a good bargain. so we were all pleased. we thought this is fine, because everybody's religious freedom should be respected, and that's what the president did. but now we have the blunt amendment. not only does this open up a pandora's box, it opens up a very dangerous policy. it allows insurers and employers to simply say they have a moral problem with something, and they don't have to offer a list of services. maybe they do it because they really have a moral conviction, but you can't really prove it. maybe they do it because they want to save some money. we don't know. but it opens up a very bad situation, and we have to table or beat this blunt amendment. it's very, very dangerous. and how about having it on a highway bill? i still can't get over it. when i first heard about it, i

thought what does it have to do with highways? maybe it says you can't take a birth control pill when you're driving on a highway. there was no connection, and there is no connection. but the majority leader is right to get a vote on this. i'll tell you why. it's holding up our highway bill. we can't get off dead center. we've been on this bill days, and we can't get off dead center, because my republican friends want to vote on contraception and women's health care on a highway bill, so we're going to do it. and hopefully that will signal our goodwill to move forward with this bill. 2.8 million jobs are at stake. our preupblgs are in desperate -- our bridges are in desperate need of fixing. we have 70,000 bridges. is that the right number? 70,000 bridges is the right number that are in very bad condition, and 50% of our roads are not up to the standard they

should be. and we've had stories of bridges crumbling. we've had stories of highways in trouble. and i'd say to my friend i'm winding down from my remarks at this point. so we shouldn't be stuck on this bill. i could proudly say that senator inhofe and i worked in the most remarkable bipartisan way to get a great bill out of our committee. the banking committee did the same. senators johnson and shelby. the commerce committee got a little stuck, but they're getting unstuck and we're moving forward on that piece. and finance has done an excellent job of finding the funds for us to fill the trust fund. mr. president, i want you to think in your mind's eye of a football stadium that hosts the super bowl. think of what it looks like when it's jam packed with people. it's about 100,000 seats, right? 15 of those stadiums could be filled with unemployed

instruction workers. think about what that would look like. 15 super bowl stadiums sold out, every seat filled. that's how many unemployed construction workers we have, because of the housing crisis. this bill will put them back to work. in a bipartisan fashion, we have protected the 1.8 million jobs and we create up to another million jobs. so i can't believe we're discussing birth control on a highway bill, but such is life. that's the way it is. if that's what we need to move this bill forward, i'm happy. if we have to move on some other issues that are not germane to the bill, i'm even willing to do that, because that's really what is at stake here. what is at stake are construction jobs. what is at stake are falling bridges. i think mean, i don't have to tell my friend the effect of a falling bridge. we know it happens.

senator inhofe is eloquent on the point that he lost a constituent who was taking a walk and a huge piece of a bridge fell and killed her. i mean, this is not the way to run a country that is the number-one economic power in the world. and i'll tell you, if we want to stay the number-one economic power in the world, we can't be stuck in traffic and have all that congestion, and it's billions of hours and billions of dollars lost because we're not keeping up with what the image that was painted for us by dwight eisenhower way back when i was a kid when he said, we need to have a network of highways that run seamlessly across our nation and connect us one to the other, a national highway system. and we've -- we can't lose that vision. we can't -- there are some people who say, oh, why do we

need a national system? let's just have the states do it. no, this is one nation under god indivisible. we need to be connected. when the imports come in from all the various countries, from the asian nations into los angeles and 40% of our imports come in there, we take those and we put them on those trains, buses -- trains and trucks and they get shipped out all across america to every state in the union. and those commerce. that's called commerce, interstate commerce. so we need the roads to be ready, willing, and able to take that kind of traffic. and not have a situation where so much is added to the cost of transport because there's so much congestion that we begin to lose our effectiveness as an economic power. and that's frankly where we are, because not only do we import,

but we export. we've got to take those exports and get them to the various coasts, the east coast, the west coast. we have a lot of opportunity to go to the gulf coast. so if we don't keep up with this national system of highways, we're in trouble. and this is a great bill. this bill is a reform bill. we take it down from a lot of titles to, you know, a couple of dozen titles. we don't overspend. the finance committee has done its job to help us fulfill the trust fund for two years. the last point i'd make before you leave the floor -- i know my good friend from georgia is here, and i know he has some remarks that he might have on another subject or -- on this one or another subject? and he's going to talk to me as the chairman p. so we have some work we want to do. so i want to close it here. but what i want to say is, this is really close to an emergency p. and i don't overstate t the

entire transportation system expires, mr. president, on march 31. that means all of our states are going to be hit with the indle after program that's -- with the end of a program that's essential to their people and businesses. that why we have 1,000 organizations representing millions of people, from the chambers of commerce to the afl-cio to the granite people to the cement people to the general contractors. i mean, seriously, the aaa -- it goes on and on from a to z -- 1,000 organizations that are behind our bill, and they're not going to look kindly on a situation that we could come to, which is that we don't have a bill. and you can't just extend this bill, because the money is not in the trust fund anymore. it's not like past years where you could extend it. the money is not in the trust fund. so if we have to cut a third,

we're talking about hundreds of thousands of workers that will be laid off. so, mr. president, i want to again thank the majority leader reid because he's getting us off center here. he's getting us off that line. we're moving forward. and i ask unanimous consent that the following staff of the finance committee be allowed on the senate floor for the duration of the debate on s. 1813: horun, dogo, av. ital christopher, andrea chapman, amanda bartman and clean air greefnlt i ask unanimous consent that there be be no motions in order other than a motion to table prior to the vote in relation to amendment 1520. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: thank you very much. i would yield the floor. and i place us in a quorum call. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. do you remembemr. durbin: thank. the mark of progress in america

can be marked by the expansion of freedom. slaves who were denied full citizen under our constitution were given their rights after the civil war. civil rights legislation in the 1960's helped african-americans and others claim their rightful place in america. and women deny add vote in america for generations finally won that right early in the 20th century. yet it took us until nearly the end of the 20th century to acknowledge the rights of another group of americans who have suffered discrimination throughout history: people with disabilities. i'd like to take a moment to recognize one of the heroes of the disabilities rights movement who passed away this past thursday at the age of 68. dr. young wu cane was a champion for people with disabilities in america. his native south korea and around the world. he was born on a small farming village in south korea under the shadow of the korean war.

young wuvment overcame adversity to become the first blind south korean to ever earn a ph.d. dr. cane's life reminds us that disability can happen to anyone at any time. when he was 14 years mold a soccer injury caused him his eyesight. he spent the next two years in the hospital enduring surgery after surgery before they finallyhold told him the sad news: he would never regain his sight. that was 1960. at the time there were only two professions in south korea open to the blind: masseur and fortune teller. but young wu cane had other plans. when he was refused admission to college because of his disability, he challenged the system and huang. when he was allowed to take the college entrance exam, he scored in the top ten. he became the first blind person to graduate with highest honors from yonci university.

he planned to earn a postgraduate degree in special education from the university of pittsburgh. in fact he'd already been accepted there when he learned that south korean policy prohibited citizens with disabilities from studying abroad. he lobbied successfully to change the policy, not only for himself but p for thousands of others in south korea with disabilities. in 1976, after obtaining his ph.d., dr. cane taught international affairs at tegu university in south korea and became a disability rights advocate. he urged the passage of legislation korea there ar simie americans with disabilities act and he helped develop the first braille fail bet for the korean language. he also founded good will in korea which provides job training and career services to people with disabilities. dr. kang and his wife were blessed with two sons, paul and chris. dr. kang and whiffs both worked

in the gary, indiana, school district. he as a superintendent for special education and she ras a teacher for visually impaired students. he also served as an adjunct professor at northeast university in my home state. he was nomentd by president george w. bush to serve on the press sty just national council on education. disabilities. a moment ago i meninged dr. kang's sons. dr. paul kang is an ophthalmologist and has served as president of the washington, d.c., oppose that will moll logical society. chris kang was a member of my senate staff for years and is hardwork. after graduating from the university of chicago and duke university law school, chris kang came to work for me, answering mail.

conge he was promoted in the ranks and he was drawn to public service like his father to try to do well for other people. he rose quickly in my office, moving from answering letters to serving on the senate judiciary committee as one of my attorneys. he became my chief floor counsel and served four years negotiating legislation, helping me understand the senate procedure and conducting important whip counts. three years ago chris kang accepted a position as special assistant to the president in the white house legislative affairs team. he's made history in his own right by helping to pass such historic laws as the american recovery and reinvestment act, the affordable care act and the fair sentencing afnlgt last year chris moved into a new porks a promotion, as senior counsel in the white house counsel's office where he's now the president's top advisor on judicial nominations. how's that for an american success story in immigrant father, appointed by a republican president, and his

american born sons, doctor, and senior democratic council to a president. helen keller who lost her hearing and sight as a young child was asked once whether she could imagine any fate worse than losing one on's sight? she said yes, losing one's vision. that vision enabled him to create a life for himself that was almost unimaginable in a world in which he grew up. he had a vision of an america and a world in which people were measured by their abilities, not their disabilities. his vision and courage helped to expand our own vision to make us a better nation. i offer my deepest condolences to his wife kay, his sons paul and chris, and their extended family, friends, and colleagues. dr. kang led a life of accomplishment and inspiration. his legacy will live on through his sons and four grandchildren,

including 4-month-old katie. his mission will live on through the good he achieved and the doors he opened for people with disabilities in korea, in america, and around the world. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: int

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. franken: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: madam president, i'd like to suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. franken: thank you, madam president. i'd like to talk for a moment about religious freedom. our country is founded on the belief that all americans should have the right to practice their religious beliefs as long as their faith does not infringe on the rights of others, and this concept which is i have the freedom to stretch out my hand as far as i can unless i punch anna here in the face. that would be -- i don't have the freedom to do that. that's impinging on anna's

rights. i think it actually pertains to more than just freedom of religion, but our basic concepts of what people's rights are. this is an idea that's woven through our constitution and our bill of rights. i have the right to choose my profession, where i live, and i have a right to choose my doctor according to my own faith, but i don't have the right to choose yours. when we wrote the health reform bill, we made sure to account for this balance. the health reform law required insurance companies to cover preventative health benefits without co-pays. and we asked the institute of medicine to study which preventative health benefits should be included, and last

summer, the i.o.m., the institute of medicine, recommended to the department of health and human services a -- that contraceptives should be covered, along with cancer screening, screening for domestic violence, many other services that have been shown to improve women's health, madam president. a number of religious institutions objected to being required to cover contraceptive services as a preventative health benefit for their employees. president obama heeded their concerns and he created an exception for churches and other religious institutions. the president went even further by saying that religiously affiliated organizations won't have to pay for contraceptive coverage for their employees. i'll say that again. the religiously affiliateed

nonprofit employer will not pay for contraceptives for their employees, and that was applauded by a lot of catholic groups, for example. but that the patients would have the right or employees would have the right to contraception, to exercise their religious rights. and very often contraception is used for medical preventive -- i think 15% of all use of contraception is to prevent maladies that women have. i believe that all americans should be able to freely and fully practice their religious beliefs to the extent their practice does not infringe on the freedom of others.

i believe that this freedom is at the heart of our society of america. and i applaud the president for finding a solution that protects religious freedoms while also providing health care to nearly all women. however, my friend, senator blunt, with whom i'm actually working on a separate transportation amendment, has filed a nongermane amendment that goes much further than the president's accommodation of religious employers. his amendment says that any employer or health insurer could opt out of any essential benefit or preventive service required by the affordable care act. all they have to do is say that their objection is on religious or moral grounds. this amendment would upend how

our entire insurance system works. it would allow any employer to opt out of covering any health care service guaranteed by americans by the affordable care act. this is an unprecedented proposal, one that could change the structure of health care in our country, much for the worse. the president found a balanced approach that maintains women's access to health care while allowing religiously affiliated organizations to opt out of paying for it. on the other hand, senator blunt's amendments would allow employers to prohibit health plans from providing the essential health services and the preventive health services guaranteed by the affordable care act. for example, under this amendment an employer could

object to covering vaccines for children. there are people in this country, i'm sure many of them are employers, who have a moral objection to vaccines. and so the plan would not be required to cover them. or an employer could not -- or the employer could choose not to allow the insurer to cover maternity care for a single woman. there are people with moral objections to people having children outside of marriage. so the woman would have to pay for her prenatal care and her maternity care out of pocket. if the employer just says no, that's -- i have a moral problem with that.

and, of course, senator blunt's amendment ignores the religious freedom of women to be able to access contraceptives. the president's accommodation a couple weeks ago protected the freedom of religious organizations while also protecting the religious freedom of the women who are their employees. remember, the employees have religious freedom, too. the blunt amendment violates the freedom of a woman to receive the kind of scientifically proven health care that she chooses. she chooses. madam president, this proposal doesn't simply put women's access to birth control in the hands of their employers. it doesn't simply allow politics to get between women and their doctors. it changes the way that health care is provided in our

country, and it violates a core belief in our society, that our religious decisions are our own. and that each of us, every woman and man in our society, has the right to make decisions about our own health for ourselves and for our families. over the last decade, we have seen proposal after proposal that would politicize the decisions that women make with their doctors. now we're seeing an all-out attack on women's right to protect their health by using contraceptives. this is something that almost all women in this country use at some point in their lives. these women choose to do that. it conforms with their own beliefs about what is best for them.

i think we all believe, or almost all of us believe that women should have that right. this seems to be a clear case of one person's religious beliefs impinging on the rights of others. it is a deeply worrying case of one person's hand meeting another's face. madam president, i rise today to urge my colleagues to fight back against these assaults. and i really urge my friends on both sides of the aisle to think about this, to respect the decisions that each woman makes about her health care.

to protect each woman's religious freedom, her liberty liberty, and to oppose senator blunt's amendment to undermine this basic freedom. thank you, madam president. and i yield the floor and would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

1r50eu quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. sanders: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. fer sph officer without objection. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sanders: i am here for senator boxer in terms of the transparence bill. but before i get to the transportation, i wanted to say a word on another issue that doegnts get the attention had at deserves and that is why as chairman of the subcommittee on primary health care i'll be holding a hearing on the dental crisis in america. as i think many americans know, although i don't hear a whole lot about it -- we as a nation are in the midst of a very severe dental crisis. more than 47 million americans live in places where it is

difficult to get dental care. about 17 million low-income children received no dental care in 2009. one-quarter of adults in the united states aged 65 or older have lost all of their teeth. low-income adults are almost twice as likely as higher-income adults to have gone without a dental checkup in the previous year, and i should tell you that bad dental health impacts overall health care. when you talk about dental care, you're talking about health care in general. if people have bad teeth or no teeth, they're unable to digest their food, which causes die jes--which causes digestive bro. people with poor teeth can likely get infections leading to very serious health problems.

and in fact there are instances where people have actually died because of poor teeth and infections. furthermore ukes the risk for diabetes, heart disease, and poor birth outcomes are also significant if people are not having their teeth well-maintained. madam president, just since 2006, there are over 830,000 visits to emergenc emergency ros the country because you have a lot of low-income people in severe pain, they can't find a dentist. they go into an emergency room and i suspect they get their teeth exstrarkted or get thei e. almost 60% of children aidgesdz five to 17 have cavities, making tooth decay five times more common than asthma among children of this age, and be in fact as i understand it, the

single-most prevalent reason for children being absent from school is in fact dental problems. in the midst of the severe need for more dentists, what is happening is that our dental community, our dentists are becoming older. many of them are retiring. in fact we need a lot more new dentists to replace those that are retiring. but the sad truth is that more dentists retire each year than there are dental school graduates to replace them. madam president, only -- one of the other problems that we're facing is there ar that only 20e nation's practicing dentists provide care to people with medicaid. so that is a serious problem. we need more dentists, but equally important we need to make sure that the dentists are providing service to the people who need it the most.

and one of the sad realities of contemporary dental life is that only 20% of the nation's practicing dentists provide care to people with medicaid, and only an extremely small percentage devote a substantial part of their practice to caring for those who are underserved. the current access problem is exacerbated by the fact that practices are often located in middle-class and wealthy suburbs and what we need is to bring dentists into those areas where people need dental care the most. so that is certainly something that we need to do. further, we need to expand medicaid and other dental insurance coverage. one-third of americans do not have dental coverage. traditional medicare for seniors does not cover dental services, and states can choose whether their medicaid programs provide coverage for dental care for

adults, and the truth is that many of them do not. let me give you some good nurks i think, in terms of where we are making some progress. recently, and i have been active in that effort, there have been -- has been an expansion of federally qualified community health centers. community health centers provide health and dental care to anybody in the area regardless of their ability to pay. and we now have a situation where community health centers are providing dental services to over 3.5 million people across the country. and i'm happy to say that in the state of vermont in recent years we have seen a very, very significant increase not only in community health centers in general but in community health centers that are providing state-of-the-art dental care. we have beautiful new facilities located in richford, in the northern part of our state in plainville, in the central part of our state, in rutland, and in other areas -- burlington is

just developing a beautiful, beautiful new dental facility. furthermore, one of the areas i think we are seeing some progress in vermont and randers the country, which i think -- and around the country, which i think has huge potential, is putting dental offices right in schools. i know in burlington, vermont, we helped bring that around some years ago. you have kids from all over the city of burlington getting their dental care. at one particular school it is working phenomenally well. we have similar programs in ri richford. madam president, i wanted to mention that i think the time is now for the congress to begin addressing this issue. and one of the things that i've done recently is on my web site, which is sanders.senate.gov, i have asked people from all over the country to tell us their stories in terms of what happens if they don't -- they are or

members of their family don't have access to dental care. and we have received, madam president, more than 1,200 stories from vermont and all over this country. and those stories are heartbreaking because they tell the tales of people who are suffering every day, who simply don't have the money to go to a dentist to take care of their dental needs. parents who are worried about their kids and pointing out how hard it is to find affordable dental care in their communities. and if people wanted to write my office, go i to my web site sanders.senate.gov, we would love to hear them because there are a lot of stories out there that are not being told. what i would like do, madam president, is read from a publication that we have just produced called "dental crisis in america: the they'd to expand access." and this will be distributed and released tomorrow rat our hearing. but did i want to read a few stories which i think speak to

the experience that whole lots of people from only end of this country to the other are having regarding access to deny it will care. this is from a woman named hedge irgetty who lives in east fairfield, vermont. "my husband and i and our four kids are the working poor. we have to think about rent and electricity before we think about dental care. my wisdom teeth have been a problem for over a decade now. i take ibuprofen and just keep on going. my husband has not seen a dentist since he was a teenager. he is afraid of the cost if they find something. because vermont has the dinosaur program, at least my children have been able to have regular cleaning. but i have to comb through the yellow pages to find an office who will accept their coverage. one time i missed an appointment because my car broke down and when i called to reschedule, they told me that we have been

blacklisted, that no one from my family can be seen in that office again. we've learned how important that care is if you get preventive care early you are less likely to have problems later on." that's from heather getty in east fair field, vermont. let me read you a statement from sean jones in vermont. "last year i had a toothache that was so painful, i had trouble eating and sleeping. my girlfriend is also covered by comairksd so i called her dentist but they wouldn't see me. i called 12 more dentists in the area but think all said the same thing. they weren't taking new medicaid patients. a few said to call back in three months, which seems like a long time to live with a bad tooth analyst finally, someone from the offers of vermont health access helped me get an emergency vurch to ge voucher ty tooth pulled. i am just grateful that my girlfriend had a car to get me there." that's just two of the statements that qaim from