quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas.

a senator: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are in a quorum call. mr. pryor: i would ask that it be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: mr. president, i rise to talk about the business on the floor, which is the omnibus appropriation bill. let me start by thanking chairwoman mikulski for her leadership. she has put long hours in this over the christmas and new year's break where most people were home with families and doing things in their home state and on vacation, she never stopped working, and her team, her staff on the appropriations committee never stopped working, and the staff as always is kind of the unsung hero around here. they did so many great things to put this together, both democrats, republicans, house and senate. everybody had to work together to get this done. i'm proud that they did. i'm also proud to be the -- one of the appropriations subcommittee chairs that was able to work on this legislation, and as you know,

i'm chairman of the agriculture appropriations subcommittee and i have worked with my counterpart, senator blunt, the ranking member of the subcommittee to craft part of this bipartisan bill. again, senator blunt has been really wonderful to work with. we appreciate him and his staff as well. when people hear agriculture appropriations, they often think about farming -- and that's understandable. we all understand why. that's certainly a key part of the bill, but that's not all that it does. our bill helps farmers with operating loans, conservation practices, marketing. it funds programs that benefit rural communities like clean drinking water and rural housing. it supports nutrition programs that help kids across the country, and it also funds international food assistance like food for peace that allows crops grown here at home to be distributed around the world. this bill in addition touches on

the food and drug administration, and that is an agency that is vitally important to the u.s., and here again, just like agriculture is one of the core strengths of the u.s. economy, pharmaceuticals is another area where america leads the world and it's critically important that we have a highly functioning f.d.a. in order for us to keep that competitive advantage. so this bill has -- this bill overall has a huge impact on the u.s. economy, but my subcommittee's part of the bill also has a very significant bearing on the u.s. economy that will continue this recovery, get people back to work, get people focused on domestic jobs and the fact that we make things here and grow things here is critically important for our future. just look, for example, at what it's doing in my home state. if i could, i could go around to each one of these desks in the senate and talk about specific things it's doing in everyone's

state, but just in my home state, it's providing funding for many of our universities, including the university of arkansas at fayetteville and arkansas state university in jonesboro to conduct cutting edge agricultural research. it's supporting economic development grants for the delta regional authority, which is in our region of the country, to boost quality of life in the delta region. it's providing our kids with a safe and stable food supply by supporting, again, in our state it's the arkansas children's nutrition center in little rock, and it's investing in the technology of tomorrow by funding the national center for toxicological research in jefferson county, arkansas. the nctr, which is part of the f.d.a., is doing that's also very important and people often take for granted, they don't understand what it does, but it is very important. now they have a new focus on nanotechnology which they have been doing the last few years,

and that's going to be a game changer as well. those are just a few of the things it's doing. i could stand here for an hour or so explaining all the benefits of the bill, i could talk about all the provisions and lots of different things about the -- that are contained in this bill, but i think overall the most important thing to note here about the arriprops bill and the omnibus bill overall is that this was an agreement reached because of bipartisanship. and we have to look back at what senator murray and congressman ryan did. appreciate both of them. they laid the groundwork for us to be here today. that was a bipartisan effort. went through both houses, bipartisan, big votes. like today, we saw a huge vote in the u.s. house of representatives yesterday. i hope we're going to see a large vote here in the senate today or tomorrow or saturday, whenever we get this done. certainly i hope it's going to be today. but nonetheless, this is a victory for bipartisanship and

the agriprops part of that is important, but the overall thing, the fact that congress is back in business. we're getting things done. we're getting back to what our chairwoman calls regular order, that we're working together and that's the only way we can get things done in washington, but it's also the only way we can secure our nation's economic future. and i hope we'll see a lot more bipartisanship in 2014. i know it's an election year. all the talking heads tell us that's going to be hard to do, but certainly i hope we can get that done. 2014, i hope it's a much more productive year in the congress than 2013 was. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. thank you. ms. mikulski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: again, i rise to compliment a subcommittee chairman. the senator from arkansas took

over this committee the first time this year, so he is a new chairman although he is not new to the issues. i'd like to thank you for the work that you did and the bipartisan tone that you set. again, you have done an excellent job, i believe, working with the senator from missouri, senator blunt. and what was impressive was how you took really -- when we say agriculture, mr. president, that's one word, but agriculture in this country is very diverse. so am i right that you handle everything from artichokes to catfish? what do you handle in your bill? mr. pryor: we handle everything from artichokes to catfish and everything in between. in our bill, we take the entire department of agriculture, with the exception of forestry, forestry goes to another subcommittee, and we also do f.d.a.

really, if you look at -- for example, i mentioned agriculture is one of the core strengths in the u.s. economy. it may not be very exciting to some people. we may take it for granted here because in this country we have always had productive agriculture, but if you look at the advantages that gives us as a nation in lots of different ways, we need to keep that core strength going just like with the pharmaceuticals and the food and drug administration is critically important as well. ms. mikulski: i want to thank you also, senator, for what you and the gentleman from missouri, senator blunt, did in terms of food safety. i believe when we did the continuing resolution, we were -- and also when we were facing shutdown, food safety really faced inspectors. we both share in our state chicken. you know, chicken is a $2 billion industry over on the eastern shore. a lot of people have good jobs because of good chicken. and the -- but without those

inspectors, my poultry industry would have really been halted. what -- what -- what were the consequences of that in those days and what have we done in this bill? mr. pryor: that's exactly right. had we not had those food inspectors, it literally could have shut down poultry plants but also beef and pork and other type of facilities overnight, and it could have shut them down and been very disruptive. one of the great things about agriculture in the u.s. is we have -- we have created a lot of efficiencies in the -- in the agriculture economy. and so when you have something disruptive like these inspectors can't inspect the meat and they just can't operate, you start to cause all kinds of disruptions, all kinds of inefficiencies, and then what happens is the price of that chicken fillet at the grocery store goes up. when you go to a restaurant, it

goes up. we do not need to jeopardize our food supply either on food safety grounds or on supply grounds because we have -- if you look at the u.s. and what we spend as a per-capita share of our income per capita, we spend less on food than anybody in the world. it's in relative terms because using that per capita because we have a higher standard of living here but we do. it's ?oog something we're very fortunate about, because of this legislation and because of what senator stabenow and others are doing with the farm bill, it's all a team effort here, we're going to keep that advantage and keep that food and fiber cheap and those are all domestic jobs. that's important. this is grown here, it's raised here, it's processed here, and it's served here. and it's great for domestic jobs, a huge ripple effect in the u.s. economy. so this bill is part of that. i'm just proud, you know, to have a hand in it. ms. mikulski: mr. president, the senator from arkansas as

well as his ranking member, the gentleman from missouri, mr. blunt, have done a great job. sometimes congress gets the rap that we grow the deficit, but here in that agriculture subcommittee they really grew jobs. and they grew it by making sure we had a solid approach to agriculture itself where farmers and producers and distributors were able to do their job, and the work of the f.d.a. through food safety really has not only kept america safe but it enabled those who produce food in our country to have the right inspection so they can have the right confidence to go right out to the supermarket. so we're very proud of what they did. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. pryor: mr. president, i would say in conclusion as i look on the floor i see the senator from alabama, from maryland, from maine, from connecticut.

agriculture touches each of these states and touch them differently. some states may focus on one thing and other states another, but nonetheless, agriculture is truly a national -- a matter of national pride. every state contributes, basically every person benefits from it, so, again, i was honored to be part of this and the chairwoman deserves a lot of credit for pushing this through and working in a bipartisan way and getting it done through both houses. mr. president, with that i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. i'm pleased and proud to follow my colleague from arkansas and join him in his applauding the chairwoman of the appropriations committee, senator mikulski, for her extraordinary and historic work on this measure which serves so well our values and goals and our traditions in

the senate of bipartisan service, and putting america first over partisanship. and i want to join my very distinguished colleague from arkansas who has highlighted so well the values served by agriculture in america and served well by this appropriations bill and by the measure that chairwoman stabenow is seeking to forge, again, through bipartisan work involving both houses of this body. agriculture serves so many of our basic values in this nation, environmental and consumer values, patriotism and pride in a way of life, and in connecticut we know deeply and urgently how threatened these values and traditions and way of life are and the environmental and consumer issues at stake. i'm pleased that we are near a

compromise on the verge and the cusp of an agreement in the farm bill that will serve the interests of farmers in connecticut and around the country, most especially the dozens of dairy farmers with relatively small farms around connecticut who have said to me again and again and again we need help, and we need certainty. that is the message that they've given me as i've visited their farms around the state of connecticut time and again, and now apparently help and certainty are on the way. i'm pleased that the farm bill conferees have reached a compromise on the dairy provisions in the farm bill. we are going to be studying them very, very closely. they've only just been announced. apparently the new deal

announced by the farm bill conferees would keep the margin insurance program but remove the dairy market stabilization program, and in place of that dairy market stabilization program, the deal revives a recently expired milk income loss coverage plan known as the milk plan, milk income loss coverage plan as a transitional program while the new marginal insurance program is set up by the u.s. department of agriculture. without going into all the details here, i think this agreement represents progress and i'm going to carefully scrutinize it and seek to improve it from the standpoint of connecticut's dairy farmers. but there can be no doubt, none whatsoever, to anyone in this body, i think we all agree as to the importance of the milk

industry, beginning with the dairy farmers. indeed, we flecting the importance -- reflecting the importance of milk to america is the fact that it is the only beverage other than water that is permitted on the floor of the united states senate so far as i know. i think i'm correct. so i'm pleased and proud to have today some milk on the floor, the first in my young experience as a united states senator, and i'm not sure that it is a correct parliamentary inquiry, mr. president, but got milk? i'm willing to share. this issue is a very serious one because the lives and livelihoods of our farmers are at stake. the open space that may be

sacrificed if dairy farms surrender and are forced to abandon this way of life by the increasingly high cost of feed, fuel, labor that are pressing them as they also encounter potential price diminishing, and reductions, and so they are squeezed. dairy farmers are squeezed, and in connecticut we have small family-owned farms like the fairview farms in woodstock, high tone farm this coventry, maple leaf in hebron, cushman in franklin, and gray wall in lebanon. i know how hard these farmers work simply to keep their farms going. these six farms make up the farmers' cow, a group of

connecticut family-owned farms dedicated to producing some of the very best milk in america. their milk is so good, in fact, they opened a milk bar. that's right a milk gather bar in mansfield called the farmer's cow cafe and creamry, you can choose between five or six types and flavors of milk to help wash down their delicious and fresh sandwiches, salads, cheeses and ice cream. visit connecticut and visit the farmer's cow cowfe. these are the farms we need to keep going. these are the men and women we need to support. we can and must support our dairy farmers in connecticut and around the country. in connecticut, in fact, we have more than 150 dairy farms on 70,000 acres, 18% of our

state's land which translate into $2 billion in economic activity for the state of connecticut alone. these farmers need help, they need stability and they need certainty. unfortunately, some in the house of representatives have delayed the farm bill for far too long, leading dairy producers to wonder whether the federal government is a friend or a foe to their businesses. and even though connecticut's dairy industry is a significant contributor to the state's agricultural industry and general economy, the industry's strength and survival depend on support that the federal government can and must provide. according to the connecticut farm bureau, that is a fact of life and they are supporting efforts by our delegation to provide that support.

in connecticut, in 1975 there were 817 dairy farms. today, there are 150. i think that experience probably is reflected by every state represented in this body, every one of my colleagues perhaps can attest to the diminishing number of dairy farmers and farmers in general. but connecticut is doing its part, and doing its share so that the farms in our state are sustained, and the federal government ought to do its part as well. according to the united states department of agriculture, connecticut ranks 45 out of 50 states in receiving agriculture-related subsidies. connecticut received $127 million between 1995 and 2010,

compared to the $22 billion received by iowa and the $24 billion that went to texas. nothing against those states, not criticizing those amounts, but the amount that we receive in connecticut is a fraction, a small fraction of what is needed to sustain our dairy farmers and that's why i will be urging and advocating for dairy farmers in connecticut under this deal, their interests are shared nationwide, we need to make sure that the agreement announced yesterday by the farm bill conferees keeping the margin insurance program but removing the dairy market stabilization program and reviving the milc program truly serves milk producers in our

nation. not just the processors, but consumers and farmers. we must do right by america's dairy farmers. as often -- an often underrepresented group in this body. and make sure that we do right by our farmers and consumers, by giving them the certainty and help they need to continue a way of life and a product that is vital to our health and our well-being as a nation. i thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor. ms. mikulski: will the senator from connecticut yield for a question? mr. blumenthal: i'd be pleased to yield for a question. ms. mikulski: first let me thank you for your general worse -- generous words about the work of

this committee. what's in your glass? i'm drinking water. what is on your desk? mr. blumenthal: i have milk madam chairman and i offered the president, the presiding officer, to share with him and i will personally after we are done here, i know that maine has its share of farmers, he is not allowed under our senate rules to respond in substance, but i'd be glad to share with you, madam chairman. ms. mikulski: i would say to the senator from connecticut, i've been in the senate 25 years, seen a lot of senators try to put a lot of things in those glasses. i've never seen milk on the senate floor. is that a permissible use? mr. blumenthal: i am told, madam chairwoman, it is a permissible beverage on the floor of the senate. if not, i'm sure i will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action. ms. mikulski: i think it's wonderful for all of us who yearn for a calcium-rich diet to

see that. but actually we salute connecticut and its strong agricultural presence in our economy, and for the senator bringing a nutritious beverage to the senate floor that's allowed under the rules and if it's not, i'm sure we could have the appropriate committees of jurisdiction to do it. but most of all i think what the senator is saying we have a lot of people in our country that work in agriculture, and agriculture is not one field. the agriculture of the united states of america is diverse, and we can't let these small farmers fade away or new emerging farmers i'm seeing in my own state whether it's in dairy or growing beef and so on, and the whole so-called farm-to-fork movement that this could be the dawn of a new age in agriculture while we preserve

that which has been traditional and fed america during good times and bad. so i thank the gentleman for his work and his advocacy and look forward to working with him. mr. blumenthal: i thank the chairwoman for those remarks and say to her as i do to all of my colleagues that agriculture and farming really are a way of life. we need to make sure that our family farms and all farms are sustained. we tend sometimes to neglect or take them for granted, and i really want to, again, thank the distinguished senator from maryland to the time and attention she has devoted over the many years that she's been here to the farms of maryland and the farms of america. and i think it is a cause that we share, whether it's alabama or georgia or any other state that's represented on the floor

here today, or maine. we need to make sure that we provide the safety net where it's necessary and the support when it's due, but al -- but also keep in find consumers are the ultimate beneficiary. the men and women and children. having four children myself and having for a time actually worked on a farm, i know that this product is central really to the american existence and the american way of life. so i thank the chairwoman, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. ms. mikulski: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be vacated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: i note that at this time -- at approximately

12:30 -- i note that the gentleman from arizona's on the floor. i just inquire of the gentleman, he had -- from 12:30, he was going to speak on the war powers act; is that correct? mr. mccain: yes. thank you, madam chairwoman, i was awaiting the arrival of my colleague from virginia who was going to speak first. ms. mikulski: i just say to the gentleman from arizona, i think this is an important discussion. we will do it any way you and the gentleman from virginia wish. if we wait for an absence of a quorum until he comes, fine. but if the gentleman wishes to proceed, that would be fine with that side of the aisle. whatever way the gentleman from arizona would like to proceed on this important topic. mr. mccain: i thank you, madam chairwoman. i will hope that the chair will chastise the senator from virginia for being towardy, and i know that the chair was very capable of that. so i will go ahead and begin as i had planned on the senator

from virginia being first. he's the sponsor of the bill of which i'm a cosponsor. i thank you, madam chairman. i'm pleased today to join my colleague, the junior senator from virginia, as we introduce today the war powers consultation act of 2014. this legislation is the final product of the national war powers commission, which was a bipartisan effort coled by former secretary of state jim baker and former secretary of state warren christopher. the commission was set up by the miller center at the university of virginia to devise a modern and workable war powers consultation mechanism for the executive and legislative branches. it included some of our nation's most distinguished and respected thinkers and practitioners of national security policy and l law. in 2008, after more than a year of hard work, the commission released the final product, an

actual legislative proposal to repeal and replace the war powers resolution of 1973, which no american president has ever accepted as constitutional. like my colleague, i view our introduction of this legislation today as the start of an important congressional and national debate, not the final word in that debate. we want to pick up where the national war powers commission left off six years ago and we do so fully understanding and hopeful that this legislation should be considered and debated and amended and improved through regular order. my colleague from virginia has done a great job on this legislation and i'm proud to join him. i'd like to expand a bit why updating the war powers resolution is such a worthwhile endeavor for the senate to consider right now. my friends, the constitution gives the power to declare war to the congress but congress has

not formally declared war since june of 1942, even though our nation has been involved in dozens of military actions of one scale or another since that time. there is reason for this. the nature of war is changing. it's increasingly unlikely that the combat operations that our nation will be involved in will resemble those of world war ii, where the standing armies and navies of nation-states squared off against those of rival nation-states on clearly defined fields of battle. rather, the conflicts in which increasingly we find ourselves and for which we must prepare will be murkier, harder to reconcile with the traditional notions of warfare, they may be are more limited in their objectives, their scope and their duration, and they likely will not conclude with a formal surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. the challenge for all of us

serving in congress is this: how do we reconcile the changing nature of war with congress' proper role in the declaration of war? mr. mccain: it's not exactly a new question but it is a profound one. for unless we in congress are prepared to cede our constitutional authority over matters of war to executive, we need a more workable arrangement for consultation and decision making between the executive and legislative branches. we have seen several manifestations of this challenge in recent years. in 2011, president obama committed u.s. military forces to combat operations in libya to protect civilian populations from eminent slaughter by a brutal anti-american tie refnlt i, for one -- tyrant. i, for one, believe he was right to do so. but six months later when our armed services were still involved in actions in libya,

not just supporting our nato allies but conducting air-to-ground operations and targeted strikes from armed, unmanned aerial vehicles, the administration claimed, as other administrations would, that it had no obligations to congress under the war powers act because our armed forces were not involved in combat operations. that struck many members of congress, including me, as fundamentally at odds with reality, and unfortunately it pushed more members of congress into opposition against the mission itself. more recently, we saw the opposite problem manifested with regard to syria. perhaps due to the backlash in congress that the administration handling of the libya conflict engendered, president obama decided to seek congressional authorization for limited airstrikes against the assad regime after it slaughtered more than 1,400 of its own citizens

with chemical weapons last august. an operation that likely would have lasted a few days and thus been fully consistent with the president's authority under the existing war powers resolution had he decided to act decisively and take limited military acti action. instead, it devolved into a stinging legislative repudiation of executive action. the tragic result was that the assad regime was spared any meaningful consequences for its use of a weapon of mass destruction against innocent men, women and children, and like libya, the forces that want to turn america away in the world were not checked but empowered. now, some of us may see the problem in these two instances of a failure of presidential leadership and i would agree, but i also believe that the the examples of libya and syria represent the broader problem we as a nation face: what is the

proper war power authority of the executive and legislative branches when it comes to limited conflicts, which are increasingly the kinds of conflicts with which we are faced? mr. mccain: it is essential for the congress and the president to work together to define a new war powers consultative agreement that reflects the nature of conflict in the 21st century and is in line with our constitution. our nation does not have 535 commanders in chief. we have one, the president, and that roll is established by on -- roll, as established by our -- role, as established by our constitution, must be preserved. and our job as a congress is not to try and manage the commander in chief in matters of war. at the same time, now more than ever, we need to create a broader and more durable national consensus on foreign policy and national security, especially when it comes to

matters of war and armed conflict. we need to find ways to make internationalist policies more politically sustainable. after the september 11th attack, we embarked on an expansive foreign policy, spending on defense and foreign assistance went up and energy shifted to the executive. now things are changing. americans want to pull back from the world. our foreign assistance and defense budgets are declining. the desire to curb presidential power across the board is growing, and the political momentum is shifting toward the congress. america has gone through this kind of political rebalancing before and much of the time we've gotten it wrong. that's how we got isolationism and disarmament after world war i. that's how we got a hollow army after vietnam. and that's how we weakened our national security after the cold war, in the misplaced hope of

cashing in on a peace dividend. we can't afford to repeat these mistakes. a new war powers resolution, one that is recognized as both constitutional and workable in practice, can be an important contribution to this effort. it can more effectively invest in the congress the critical decisions that impact our national security. it can help build a more durable consensus in favor of the kinds of policies we need to sustain our global leadership and protect our nation. in short, the legislation we are introducing today can restore a better balance to the way national security decision making should work in a great democracy such as ours. let me say again, neither the senator from virginia nor i believe the legislation we are introducing today answers all of the monumental and difficult questions surrounding the issue of war powers.

we believe this is a matter of transcendent importance to our nation and we as the deliberative body of our government should debate this issue. and we look forward to that debate. this legislation should be seen as a way of starting that discussion both here in the congress and across our nation. we owe that to ourselves and our constituents. and most of all, we owe that to the brave men and women who serve our nation in uniform and are called to risk their lives in harm's way for the sake of our nation's -- national defense. mr. president, before i ask my tardy colleague from virginia, i would like to mention again that one of -- another reason why i think that this legislation should be the beginning of a serious debate which should read reach to system conclusion. the fact is that no president of

the united states has recognized the constitutionality of the war powers act. that is a problem in itself. that is -- that is a perversion, frankly, of 9 constitution of the united states of -- of the constitution of the united states of america. that's one reason. but the most important reason, mr. president, i believe that we are living in incredibly dangerous times. when you look across the middle east, when you look at asia and the rise in the nengsz tha tenst part of the world and you look at the conflicts becoming regional -- and whose fault there are is a discussion for another debate and discussion. but the fact is we are on -- in path of some kind of conflict which, whether the united states of america wants to or not, we may have to be involved in some ways. we still have vital national security interests in the middle east. it is evolving into a chaotic situation and you can look from the mediterranean all the way to

the straits of hormuz, the gulf of acaba and throughout the region. and so i believe that the likelihood of us being involved in some way or another in some conflict is greater than its been since the end of the cold war. and i believe the american people deserve legislation and a clear definition of the responsibilities of the congress of the united states and that of the president of the united states. and i again want to thank my colleague from virginia, whose idea this is, who took a great proposal that was developed at the university of virginia and was kind enough to involve me in this effort. and i thank him for it and i thank him for his very hard work on it. despite the fact, as the chair will recognize, that he was late for this discussion. thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i -- i thank my colleague from arizona for pointing to all in the

chambers my tardiness and i should not have been tardy because i do not like to follow the senator from arizona. i would rather begin before him. but i want to thank him for his work together on this important issue and amplify on a few of the comments that he's made. today, together as cosponsors, we're introducing the war powers consultation act of 2014, which would repeal the 1973 war powers resolution and replace it. i could not have a better cosponsor than senator mccain and appreciate all the work that he and his staff have done over the last months with us. i gave a floor speech about this issue in this chamber in july of 2013, almost to the day 40 years after the senate passed the war powers resolution of 1973. and many of you remember the context of that passage. when it was passed in the summer of 1973, it was in the midst of the end of the vietnam war. president nixon had expanded the vietnam war into cambodia and

laos without explicit congressional approval, and the congress reacted very negatively and passed this act to try to curtail executive powers in terms of the initiation of military hostilities. it was a very controversial bill. when it was passed, president nixon vetoed it. congress overrode the veto at the end of 1973, but as senator mccain indicated, no president has conceded the constitutionality of the 1973 act, and most constitutional scholars who have written about the question have found at least a few of what they believe would be fatal infirmities in that 1973 resolution. it was a hyperpartisan time, maybe not unlike some aspects of the present, and in trying to find that right balance in this critical question of when the nation goes to war or initiates military action, congress and the president did not reach an accord. i came to the senate, mr. president, with a number of

passions and things i hoped to do, but i think i only came with one obsession, and this is that obsession. virginia is a state that's most connected to the military of any state in the country. our -- our map is a map of american military history, from yorktown where the revolutionary war ended to appomattox where the civil war ended to the pentagon where 9/11 happened. that is who we are. one in nine virginians is a veteran. if you add to our population our active duty, our guard, reserve, our military families, our d.o.d. civilians, our d.o.d. contractors, you're basically talking about one in three virginians. these issues of war and peace matter so deeply to us as they do to all americans. the particular passion that -- that i had in coming to this body around war powers was a -- kind of a disturbing thought, which is if the president and congress do not work together

and find consensus in matters around war, we might be asking our men and women to fight and potentially give their lives without a clear political consensus and agreement behind the mission. i do not think there is anything more important than -- than the senate and congress can do than to be on the board on decisions about whether or not we initiate military action, because if we don't, we are asking young men and women to fight and potentially give their lives, with us not having done the hard work of creating the political consensus to support them. and so that is why i have worked hard to bring this to the attention of this body and senator mccain. the constitution actually sets up a fairly clear framework. the president is the commander in chief, not 535 commanders in chief as senator mccain indicated, but congress is the body that has the power both to declare war and then to fund military action. and in dividing the responsibilities in this way,

the framers were pretty clear. james madison who worked on the constitution, especially the bill of rights, wrote a letter to thomas jefferson and said -- quote -- "the constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it. it is accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature. despite that original constitutional understanding, our history has not matched the notion that congress would always be the initiator of military action. congress has only declared war five times in the history of the united states, while presidents have initiated military action prior to any congressional approval more than 120 times. now, in some of these instances where the president has initiated war, congress has come back and either subsequently ratified presidential action, sometimes by a former approval or sometimes by informer

approval such as budgetary allocation. but in other instances, including recently, presidents have acted and committed american military forces to military action without any congressional approval, and the senator from arizona mentioned the most recent one. president obama committed military force to nato, action against libya in 2011 without any congressional approval, and he was formally censured by the house of representatives for doing so. the current context that requires a renales of this thorny question after 40 years of the war powers resolution is well stated by the senator from arizona. wars are different. they start differently. they are not necessarily nation state against nation state. they -- they could be limited in time or as of now we are still pursuing a military force that was authorized on september 18, 2001, 12 or 13 years later, wars of different duration, scope,

geography. nation states are no longer the only entities that are engaged in war, and these new developments that are challenging, what do we do about drones and countries far afield from where battles were originally waged raises the issue of the need to go back into this war powers resolution and update it for the current times. as the senator from arizona mentioned, this has been a question that members of congress have grappled with and thought about, as have diplomats and scholars and -- and administration officials and members of congress for some time. in 2007, the miller center for the study of the presidency at the university of virginia convened a -- a national war powers commission under the chairmanship of two estimable and bipartisan leaders, former secretaries of state warren christopher and james baker, and the remaining members of the commission were a complete a-list of thinkers in this area, slate gordon, ad mikfa, lee

hamilton. the commission's historian was no less than doris kearns goodwin who looked at the entire scope of this problem in american history and what the role of congress and the president should be. and the mission issued a unanimous report proposing the power for the war powers act of 1973, briefed congress and the incoming president obama on the particular act in 2007 and 2008, but at that time the time wasn't yet right for consideration of this bill. but now that we're 40 years into an unworkable war powers resolution and now as the senator indicated we have had a string of presidents, both democratic presidents and republican presidents who maintain that the act is unconstitutional and now that we have had a 40-year history of congress often exceeding to the claim of unconstitutionality by not following the war powers resolution itself, we do think

it is time to revisit. let me just state two fundamental substantive issues that this bill presents in the war powers consultation act of 2014. first, there is a set of definitions. what is war? well, the bill defines significant military action is any action where the involvement of u.s. troops would be expected to be in combat for at least a week or longer, and under those circumstances, the provisions of the act would be triggered. there are some exceptions to the act. the act would not cover a defined covert action operations. but once a combat operation was expected to last for more than seven days, the act would be triggered. the act basically sets up two important substantive improvements on the war powers resolution. first, a permanent consultation committee is established by congress with the majority and minority leaders of both houses and the chairs and ranking

members of the four key committees in both houses that deal with war issues, intel, armed services, foreign relations and appropriations. that permanent consultation committee is a venue for discussion between the executive and legislative branches, permanent and continuous over matters in the world that may require the use of american military force. because the question comes up often, well, what did the president do to consult with congress? is it enough to call a few leaders or call a few committee chairs? this act would normalize and regularize what consultation with congress means by establishing a permanent consultation committee and requiring ongoing dialogue between the executive and that committee. the second requirement of this bill is that once military action is commenced, it would make more than seven days, there is a requirement for a vote in both houses of congress. the consultation committee itself would put a resolution on

the table in both houses to approve or disapprove of military action. it would be a privileged motion with expedited requirements for debate, amendment and vote, and that would ensure that we do not reach a situation where action is being taken at the instance of one branch with the other branch not in agreement, because to do that would put our men and women who are fighting in any harm's way at the risk of sacrificing their lives when we and the political leadership have not done the job of reaching a consensus behind the mission. to conclude, i will acknowledge what the senator from arizona said. this is a very, very thorny and difficult question that has created challenges and differences of interpretation since the constitution was written in 1787, despite the fact that the framers who wrote the constitution actually had a pretty clear idea about how it should operate. it's never really operated down there. 40 years of a failed war powers

resolution in today's dangerous world suggests that it's time now to get back in and to do some careful deliberation, to update and normalize the appropriate level of consultation between a president and the legislature, and the recent events as cited by the senator, whether it's the merits or the equities, whether it's libya or syria, the discussions we're having now with respect to iran or any other of a number of potential spots around the world that can lead to conflict suggest that while decisions about where and initiation of military action will never be easy, they get harder if we don't have an greap process for coming to understand each other's points of view and then acting in the best interests of the nation to forge a consensus. so with that, mr. president, i appreciate the opportunity to stand with my colleague after a number of months of discussion and introduce this bill, and i look forward to the opportunity to -- to carry this dialogue forward with my colleagues in

this body. thank you very much. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: i would ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of my staff, and that is laura markstein. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tester: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i want to talk about the omnibus for a brief time before senator leahy has some remarks to be made. first of all, i think it's important, and i want to thank the chair and the ranking member of the appropriations committee and their staffs for their hard work to draft a sensible funding bill that i think really meets the needs of the american people. a bill that helps us move past the stalemate and disagreements of the past few years and do what the american people sent us here to do, and that is roll up our sleeves, work together, work hard and govern. recently, folks have put and politics ahead of our constituents and our responsibilities and the results haven't been pretty, but thanks

to chairman mikulski and ranking member shelby and their counterparts in the house of representatives, we now have a responsible bipartisan bill that we can work with, one that invests in our future to strengthen our economy but that makes tough choices so that we can continue to get our fiscal house in order. approving this bill helps us avoid another round of devastate ing sequester cuts, avoid a government shutdown and avoid some of the bitterness that is dragging down economic growth. in montana, our seniors, children, women and civilian members of the military, to name a few, felt the sequester's cuts head on. kids couldn't go to head start, the elderly couldn't get meals, women faced cuts to reproductive health programs, defense department employees were forced to stay home and our military was dangerously close to being hollowed out. this bill makes smart choices to continue to reduce our deficit while investing in core national

priorities, those being education, health care, infrastructure, research and development and defense. and at the same time, it continues our fiscally responsible approach to governing by reducing or eliminating funding for dozens of programs that have been left on auto pilot after two years of continuing resolutions. and it repeals the recently enacted reduction in the annual cost of living adjustments for disabled military retirees and for survivors of military retirees. this particular change is very important for folks who have been medically retired and for survivors, folks who are more likely to be on a fixed income, and it was done without any fanfare and without any grandstanding. senator mikulski and senator shelby figured out how to fix it. now, let's be clear. this is one step in a two-step process. we have more work to do to address the military pension issue to make sure it works for the men and women of our military who have made great

sacrifices on our behalf. i also want to thank chairman reed and senator mikulski for putting forward a smart interior bill. by ending sequestration, we're able to make some real progress in indian country and in protecting some of america's most unique landscapes. the interior bill increases funding for indian health service, which is necessary. it increases funding for indian education and for promoting good stewardship of our public lands. this bill is important to states like montana and will improve the quality of life for folks on our seven reservations and create more tourism and recreational opportunities throughout montana. i am concerned, however, by the absence of one measure. it's a measure approved by the senate appropriations and rules committee, it is bipartisan, it saves money, it brings more transparency and accountability to a town that needs more of both and more than one-third of the senate is a cosponsor. this act is called the senate

campaign disclosure parity act. right now candidates for the senate do not have to electronically file file their reports with the federal elections committee. they can follow airline -- voluntarily e-file and maybe you did, mr. president, but many of our colleagues do not. instead all a senate candidate has to do is take a stack of documents, drop them on the door of the secretary of the senate's office and head back to the campaign trial trail. the secretary of the senate sends the documents to the f.e.c. hiring contractors to put them on line where they can be viewed by the taxpayers. this cost the taxpayers nearly $500. but the biggest cost is to the american people particularly to our voters who have the right to know who is funding the campaigns of their elected officials. it's not as if i'm proposing a new idea, mr. president, candidates for the house of

representatives must electronically file their finance reports, presidential candidates e-file. yet the senate is stuck in the dark ages in an era of smart phones and cars that drive themselves and combines that harvest fields using g.p.s., today the senate is dropping stacks of paper at officials' door steppes. i proudly voluntarily e-file my campaign finance reports, many of our colleagues do as well but that's not enough. ironically we don't know why my bill to improve transparency and save money didn't make it into the funding bill. i'm told it was blocked by the house of representatives. a few folks at the house are pointing fingers here, that's politics instead of governance. we can do better. here in the congress we demand more transparency from federal agencies and that's the right thing to do but we need to look in the mirror. americans are dmang this funding

bill as well. it's responsible government, makes tough choices to getting our fiscal house in order while investing in the future. it puts our country on more solid foot,, delivers certainty to small businesses so we can count on them to grow and create jobs. our constituents sent us here to find common ground. this kind of responsible bill is why we're here so, once again, i want to thank the chairwoman and the ranking member for their hard work in bringing this bill to the floor. i look forward to seeing its final passage. with that i yield the floor, madam president. a senator: president madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: thank you. i want to address my remarks first to the chairman and the ranking member of the appropriations committee. i think you've done a lot of hard work and you've done something that even though i'm not in the consensus you've done

what the senate was designed to do is build a consensus around a bill and there's no question this bill will pass today so my congratulations to you and my sincere thanks for some of the things that you put in the bill that we've been working on that are good government projects. i just wanted to say that from the start. and i'm not going to talk specifically about the bill, i'm going to talk in bigger, broader terms, the problems that are facing us as a country. i had my hands, a book that contains $9 trillion worth of cuts. not hardly anybody in the senate's read it. they may not agree with 50 or 60% or 70%. but there is certainly somewhere in here consensus to save a whole whole lot more money than what we're doing. in 2009 a young little lady by the name of madeleine showed up

outside the senate. and this is what she had draped around her. i'm already $38,375 in debt and i only own a dollhouse. and since that period of time we've managed to markedly change that situation for her to the worse. because today if she was outside , she'd have that sign around her neck and it would say $54,602 and she only owns a dollhouse. and the point i'm trying to make is this whole-hole is getting deeper and deeper and deeper. and though i didn't vote for the budget agreement because i think it could have been done better,

it was an agreement, it had a consensus as well. so my criticism isn't that the members of this body forced a consensus and which is exactly what the senate is supposed to do, but i think as we've done these things we might have lost sight of the big picture. so i want to share with you for a minute what the big picture really looks like. because it is not pretty. according to generally accepted accounting principles -- that's not the way we run the government by the way. we don't use real accounting principles, we use all the tricks and smoke and mirrors we can, this number is undisputable. the unfunded liabilities for the federal government are $127 trillion. think about that. we can't even imagine how much

that is. our national debt is $17.33 trillion as of last night. i checked it. there's 114 million households in america. if you take the federal liability per household, it comes out to $1.11 million. so $1.11 million is what the debt plus the liability is for every family in this country. and it's growing. and i know we can't solve this problem over one year or two years. i'm so thankful the senator who is leading up the appropriation committee is in her position. i have the most wonderful respect for her. she's a listener. she wants to do right. but what we have to do is change the direction of this. it needs to go the other way.

and that requires everybody. if you think about it, if the average family per capita income which is what it was last year in this country, $53,000, can you imagine how we're going to leverage and afford just the interest costs on $1.11 million? if you had 5% on a million bucks, that's $55,000. that's more, just the interest costs are more than the median family income in this country. so there are parts of this bill that are in front of us that i'm highly critical of. i don't like the fact we play game a chimps, changes in mandatory programs. to me it's not straightforward to the american people, it's not being honest about what we're actually doing. but what we're actually doing is

digging the hole deeper. let me just outline some things we could have done that we didn't do before we had the budget agreement and before we had this appropriation bill. the g.a.o. over the last three years as identified about $250 billion that we could take a large portion of away, just by eliminating duplication and by putting metrics on programs. now, think about that. that's $250 billion a year. so if we were to do that -- and i've been out here giving speeches on all this and what everything is duplicative of -- but the problem is that the appropriate committees not have met to look at the g.a.o. recommendations. they've not acted on them. they've not responded to them.

the administration -- i'll give them credit -- in their budgets the last few years, they've looked at those g.a.o.'s and made recommendations for eliminations and consolidations. but we've essentially ignored it. and i know how tough it is to build a consensus in the appropriation committee that that will get you the votes you need to accomplish that from the parochial concerns to the total budget concerns. i understand that. i'm glad we got a number now and i'm glad you brought a bill that has the a number. the number is too high if we're ever going to do anything about this. but the fact that we don't do anything that will really make a difference in the future in terms of driving this number down. just think, if we -- let's say the g.a.o.'s 50% right. let's just say they're only 50% right. what if we consolidated, put

metrics on programs and streamlined as they recommend, and we saved $150 billion a year. that starts you going in the right direction. it changes us. we start going in the right direction. now, think for a minute, if we have no recessions over the next 20 years and we have great economic growth at 4%, we still don't solve this problem. because the interest costs are greater than the g.d.p. growth associated with our country. so i wanted to give the background of why i come out here all the time and raise the issue of why we're stealing the future from our children. and nobody can deny the fact we haven't done the work, the

reasons that we haven't done the work are multiple, but most of it is we just won't do the work and we don't have the leadership that requires us to do the work. think about madeleine, let's say she gets a great college education and is in the upper quintile in our country in terms of earnings when she is 25. with normalized interest rates, she's going to fall behind. so i know we're talking out in the future, but one of the things thomas jefferson wanted out of the senate was for us to be long-range thinkers. not to think about the problem right now. think about what the problem's

going to be. in mine nine -- my nine years here i've failed in my ability to convince my colleagues we ought to be worried about this problem. because the promise of america was opportunity. the promise of the poorhouse is no opportunity. and what we have set up for the average american family in the future is the poorhouse. and it doesn't have to be that way. we can fight among our priorities but thing one thing we shouldn't be fighting about, the one thing we should know that we can fix is why would there be 679 different renewable energy programs? can anybody give any possible justification for that? it's just $15 billion a year, but if you consolidated them down to 20, you could save $5

billion a year. that's $50 billion over ten years. why are there 253 different department of justice crime prevention grants? each one of them has an overhead and what we found when we studied it is people get a grant from one, then use the same grant application to go to another grant overhead in d.o.j., get the grant from another section, another program, for exactly the same claim. and the right hand doesn't know the left hand. if you consolidate them, one, you'd get more money to each individual grant, and number two is you wouldn't have the duplication, the fraud and the lack of compliance that we know that these grant programs are loaded with. we've done the work. we've done the oversight. we've actually gone and studied them. or why are there 209 -- think

about this -- science, technology, engineering and math incentive programs, education programs, 13 different agencies, $3.5 billion a year. why do we allow that to happen? why do we allow -- here's the real face of who it's going to affect and yet we won't do the hard work. and it's not the appropriators' job to do the hard work. i understand that. but one of the things that appropriators could do is say we're not going to fund any of these programs unless you consolidate them and put metrics on them. so if you expect it to come out in march -- and i'm so happy that the chairman wants to run the appropriations bills, to get back to normal. but to say, judiciary committee, if you want these justice grant programs run, consolidate them, put metrics on them, streamline them and send them to us and

then we'll fund them. if you don't -- you know, so everybody will know, we're appropriating a year about $480 billion worth of money for programs that aren't authorized at all. so one of the strengths of the appropriation committee could be that you could put some demands on the authorizing committee to clean this stuff up. let me just give you a couple more. health care's been in the news. how many of us realize that we have 91 different health care training programs spending $14 billion a year? none of my colleagues probably know that. but in the committee of jurisdiction, they've done nothing about it. and so i don't object to

spending $14 billion on health training programs or any of these other things as long as we're doing it wisely. and what i would suggest to you, 91 different programs, which should be probably four or fiv five -- probably be four or five, and the overhead with the others are saved to the public, that we could save a significant amount of money for madeleine. because the real story is, our excesses, our lack of work, our lack of consolidation, our lack of streamlining, our lack of elimination and duplication, our lack of demanding metrics so that we know the programs we're out there funding are working, we're not going to pay the price for it. nobody in this room. the people who are going to be paying the price for them is madeleine's generation. and how are they going to pay for that? what's going to happen? what's the real cost associated with that? it's not a pretty picture.

here's what it is. it's a markedly declining standard of living. most people don't know that median family incomes in real dollars in america today is at the exact same level it was in 1989 and it's going backwards, even with a growing economy. it's going backwards. so the assets available to a family are declining while the obligations for that family are increasing. and we're responsible for that. and it's not something that we can't fix, it's something that we choose not to fix. i also would say that i have one large concern in this bill. we increased n.i.h. back up a billion dollars. we're still not where we were

two years ago but we started with $800 million more at the defense department duplicating programs that are already running at the n.i.h. so you're making my list bigger, not smaller. we're going in the wrong direction. we have great people at the n.i.h. we've got a great leader in francis collins. they've markedly improved their management of their grants, their oversight of their grants, and we're going to take $800 million and move it to another set of overhead, with people not nearly as experienced, not nearly as knowledgeable and we're going to be spending money in the defense department to study things that we're spending money on the exact same type of thing at n.i.h. so we're not going to get great value for this money. what we're going to do is waste it. and what that dollars 800 million should have done -- $800

million should have done, it should have gone to n.i.h. and to every other non-military related medical program over there. that money should have gone to n.i.h. and when you talk to the senators that started this, both tom harkin and our former colleague, now deceased, ted stevens, they'll admit to you in private that it was a mistake to ever start it this way. because we're wasting a ton of precious dollars that could be used to save somebody's life. but somebody has a reason for that. i don't know what it is. but i'll tell you, in this bill you've got $68 billion of appropriations for the defense department that have nothing to do with the defense of this country. now, you don't get all those savings if you take it out of the defense department but you get $3 billion or $4 billion if

you take it out of the defense department. and that $3 billion or $4 billion could fund n.i.h. back at a level that it should be funded or could protect madeleine from further decline in her standard of living. so i've made my point. i understand my perspective is not in the majority. but i'll guarantee you my perspective's in the majority of americans, that we ought not to have 679 renewable energy initiatives. i don't think you'd find anybody in the country who would disagree with me on that. that they ought to be consolidated, they ought to be run efficiently, they ought to have metrics on them. and as well as the other hundreds of sets of duplicatio duplications. we're going to get another report next month from the g.a.o., actually in march. it will be their fourth. and they're so discouraged because they do all this hard work and they make recommendations and then we sit

on them, we don't act. and so if i were to have a challenge to my colleagues, it's, first of all, read the reports over the last four years and look at the data that shows where we're really wasting mon money. and then, please, for madeleine and her generation's sake, act on it, don't ignore it. i know it's not easy work. it's hard work. i've done oversight for nine years here. but it can be done, it should be done, and the madeleines of america are worth it. i yield the floor.

mr. shelby: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. shell she will bi shelby: te senator from oklahoma are very interesting and telling and i listened to them carefully, and i believe basically he is right on the point. i believe basically that we all agree with the senator that it is important to reduce the waste and duplication in our government and he points out a lot of it. g.a.o. has done it too. our staff has met with the g.a.o. several times on ways to address this problem. we know the problem. we've got to act on it and we've got to take it very seriously. and g.a.o., as senator coburn said, is coming out with a new report. but if we -- if we work on this, the government will -- is going to be more efficient and we're going to save money and we're going to respond to problems in

america much better. we're a long way from doing this and i appreciate his remarks this afternoon and i hope that a lot of my senators were looking at that and listening to it. a senator: madam president? mr. johanns: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to speak about 12 minutes as in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. johanns: thank you, madam president. i rise today to discuss a bill my colleagues and i introduced to reestablish trade promotion authority, often referred to as t.p.a. senators baucus and hatch, along with congressman camp in the house, introduced the congressional trade priorities act just last week. the senate finance committee held a hearing on it today. this bill would resurrect the

partnership between congress and the administration to promote a robust trade agenda. that partnership, known as t.p.a., came about as a way to thoughtfully and pragmatically exercise congress' constitutional authority to regulate foreign commerce. t.p.a. effectively combines this authority with the president's authority to negotiate treaties. congress, there are, provides the marching orders to the president and the president, in turn, gets an up-or-down vote on the agreement that is negotiated. so, madam president, some might ask, why would we do this? why should congress set rules for itself to consider trade agreements through a very special legislative process? simply put, negotiating modern trade agreements would be virtually impossible without

providing some assurance that agreed-upon provisions, negotiated provisions won't be picked apart after the negotiators shake hands. trade agreements span a multitude of issues affecting international commerce. to reach these agreements, they need to be extensive -- there needs to be extensive negotiations by representatives of the countries involved. but congress is hardly equipped to engage in multilateral negotiations with foreign countries. we know that. we can hardly negotiate with each other these days. t.p.a. allows congress to set priorities for trade agreements and engage with the president throughout the process. during floor considerations, amendments cannot be offered because it would undermine our trade representative. it would undermine the trade representatives' hands in

negotiation. so, imagine, mr. president, our negotiators signing a deal, shaking hands with our counterparts from other parts of the world, and then bringing the deal to congress. then, after 535 people offer a whole slew of amendments, they have to go back to the other countries and try to reopen negotiations because everything has been changed. no one would ever negotiate a trade deal with the united states again. so why is that a bad thing? should we negotiate trade agreements at all? i would argue unquestionably the answer is absolutely yes. white houses from reagan to obama would agree that. furthermore, the overall benefit of free trade is undisputed by the economists. a free rules-based trading system is much better for

america than a system where the government picks winners and losersment and it's bette -- lo. and it's better for american jobs when the playing field is a level playing field. let me give you an example -- colombia. in 2011, congress passed a trade agreement with colombia, already one of our most important allies in latin america. now, that trade relationship is thriving as a result of that agreement. consider this. between 2011-2013, u.s. goods exports to colombia have increased 18%. at the same time, u.s. goods exports to the rest of the world have decreased by 2%. trade agreements are a great benefit to americans as well as in corners of the world where they need a strong ally. unfortunately, that's a message that doesn't always make it

through. instead, we hear a chorus of scare tactics about job losses, environmental concerns, whatever it is. critics ignore the proven power of trade to expand job opportunities and to improve standard of living not only here but around the world. at the same time, the lives of millions of people around the world improve. almost all economists would agree that countries should move toward more free trade, not le less. one need only examine tariff rates to understand why it's in our best interests to pursue trade agreements. u.s. barriers to trade are already very low by global standards. our average tariff rate is 3.3 3.35%. compare that to our current trade negotiating partners. vote familiar has an average tariff rate of 10%.

malaysia's averages 6%. japan and the e.u. both have average tariff rates of 5.3%. only new zealand has a lower rate than we do. so trade agreements help to level the playing field by bringing down tariffs imposed on our goods by our competitors. put simply, trade agreements knock down barriers, they open up doors for u.s. producers and manufacturers to get our economic engine going again. critics falsely claim we're going to experience a flood of cheap imports as a result of new trade. my friends, that simply doesn't make sense when our tariffs are already low. trade agreements bring down our competitors' high tariffs. they level the playing field. the benefit to trade is especially clear for agricultural products, huge

drivers of the economy in my state. our average tariff on these imported products is 5%. malaysia's is 11%. the european union is 14%. vietnam is 17%. japan has an agricultural tariff rate of 23%. these countries all already have a number of trade agreements in place with other countries. that means we face restrictions while our competitors reap the benefits of the open market. we're on the sidelines while other countries are filling the orders and creating the jobs. trade promotion authority paves the way to lowering these barriers, and in some cases eliminating them altogether. of course, tariffs are not the only barriers our exporters face, and t.p.a. would help us address the others, too. countries also impose nontariff

barriers, often claiming some illegitimate basis in science, and they have brought our industries to their knees. modern trade agreements address those barriers as well, and we can't get good trade agreements inked without t.p.a. in general, the u.s. abides by true science-based trade standards. this is less common, though, in the rest of the world, to say the least. trade agreements help bring export markets in line with the same kind of science-based standards that we apply to our imports, so if you're concerned about foreign countries blocking american exports, you should support t.p.a. without t.p.a., it becomes much, much harder to open up those markets for american workers. get behind this t.p.a. bill and

get it across the finish line so that new trade agreements can clear the way for more americans to be hired as export demand increases. i am pleased that president obama now recognizes the immense benefit that trade provides to our great nation. despite being all talk and no action on trade early on, this administration is currently negotiating the two largest trade agreements in history. in my opinion, it's time for the partisan bickering to end. there are clear job-creating benefits to our country, and it's time for the president to make that case to the american people and to his allies in congress. in a couple of weeks, the president will have an opportunity to do so on the -- in the state of the union address. i hope he follows through. given the ambition of potential agreements across the pacific and the atlantic, the president must lay the groundwork, the

vision for the passage of this legislation. creeght jobs in this nation is too important to leave at the mercy of election year politics. it really is time to act. my hope is that we pass t.p.a. quickly so we can put americans back to work. madam chair, thank you. i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. sessions: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: is the senate sonja quorum call? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. sessions: i would unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: madam president, our late colleague, senator byrd, likes to say there have been two great senates in the united states in the history of the world, the u.s. senate and the roman senate. he understood the special and crucial role the senate fulfills in our constitutional republic. the senate is where the great issues of our time are supposed to be examined, reviewed and

discussed before the whole nation in public, yet in the last few years, we have witnessed the dramatic erosion of senators' rights and the dismantling of open process. we fund the government through massive omnibus bills. this is the bill that's before us now, 1,583 pages stacked up here before us. and that no one really has a chance to read or evaluate or analyze. senators are stripped of their rights to offer amendments. we won't have amendments. bills are rushed through under threat of panic, crisis or shutdown. pass it today or the government shuts down. secret deals rule the day. work is done outside the public and millions of americans are essentially robbed of their ability to participate in the process by interesting what their -- examining what their senators do. under the tenure of majority

leader reid, the senate is rapidly losing its historic role as that great deliberative body. if this continues, america will have lost something very precious. one of the tactics by which majority leader reid has suppressed senators' rights and blocked open debate is the technique called filling the tree. what this means basically is that when a bill comes to the floor, the leader will use his right of first recognition to fill all the available amendment lots on a bill and then block anyone else from offering an amendment. one man stands in the way of his 99 colleagues. i say one man, but not really all alone does he stand there. his power exists as long -- only as long as his democratic colleagues support his blocking of amendments. so be this prevents the body from working its will, it

prevents legislation from being improved by amendment, it prevents senators from being accountable to their voters on the great issues of the day. and this is, of course, why it's done. it's not time. that has nothing to do with it. it is not done because the majority leader did not want to have his colleagues vote. our majority leader has used this tactic filling the tree 80 times already. to put this in perspective, the six previous majority leaders filled the tree only 49 times combined. senator reid has filled the tree on 30 or more occasions than the six previous leaders combined. in so doing, it denies the citizen of each state their equal representation in the u.s. senate. but majority leader reid in his effort to protect his conference from casting difficult votes, in

order to assure -- shield them from accountability has essentially closed the amendment process. he has shut down one of the most important functions that senators exercise to represent the interest of their constituents. recently, this tactic manifested itself in a dramatic way, to the surprise and shock of many in the december spending agreement contained a provision to cut the lifetime pension payments of current and future military retirees, including wounded warriors, by as much as $120,000 over the life -- over their retirement period. other senators and i have had many ideas about how to fix this problem, but we were blocked from offering them by the majority leader. i tried to offer an amendment to replace the cuts by closing a fraud loophole used by illegal immigrants, cited by the department of treasury to claim

billions of dollars in free credits they are not entitled to. billions would more than pay for this. senator reid and his conference members, save one, stood together to block my amendment from a vote. so i would ask my colleagues are you comfortable with this? do you have -- do you like having to beg and plead with one person for the right to offer an amendment in the united states senate? do you believe the senate should operate according to the power of one man? this omnibus bill, although it restores pensions for our heroic wounded warriors, leaves more than 90% of those cuts in place. shouldn't we be allowed to offer amendments to provide a fair fix for all our warriors and veterans? but blocking amendments is only one of the many abuses. the erosion of the senate has also been front and center in the budgeting process.

we are now in our fifth year without adopting a budget resolution. we went over four years without the senate even passing a budget, as required by plain law in the 1974 budget act. but instead, taxpayers' dollars are being spent through a series of late-minute negotiations and legislative pay caps that are driven through the senate. then we face a massive omnibus bill. this 1,583-page monstrosity. is rushed to passage without any amendments or meaningful review. the american people have no ability to know what is in it or to hold us, their elected representatives, accountable, and that's of course why it's being done. today the senate and house are considering another omnibus bill.

the one that will spend more than a trillion dollars, with thousands of items of government spending crammed into this single legislative proposal. the bill will be sped through under threat of government shutdown with very little debate and no ability to amend. if you don't accept what's in the bill and vote for it and pass it, senator reid says i'll accuse you of blocking the bill and shutting the government down. you don't dare vote no. so it's another way that we must pass it to find out what's in it. my staff and i have had less than 48 hours to digest this bepeople the, -- behemoth, but already we found provisions that would not survive if considered in the regular order where you

have amendments. how is the process supposed to work? each year, congress is supposed to adopt a budget resolution. the law requires it. then based on spending levels contained in the budget resolution, individual committees report 12 authorization bills. i serve on the armed services authorization committee. based on the expertise and experience of members serving on those committees, they authorize spending. senator levin is our armed services chair. senator inhofe is ranking member. senator mccain is on there. these are people who have given years of their life to understand the challenges of military matters. then the 12 subcommittees of the appropriations committee are to produce appropriations bills for their -- for their area of the budget, such as defense, homeland security and

agriculture, which are to be individually considered, debated and amended on the senate floor. and so they actually appropriate the activities that the authorization committees authorize to be funded. that's the way the process is supposed to work. this gives each member on the appropriation bill hits the floor and their constituents a chance to review and analyze each part of the budget and offer suggestions for saving money, improving efficiency, and better serving the taxpayers. that's the way it's supposed to work. the budget -- but under the tenure of senator reid, the budgeting process has been totally mismanaged. we've ceased consideration of appropriation bills altogether, basically, relying more and more on autopilot resolutions,

continuing resolutions and catch-all behemoth spending packages like this one. in fiscal year 2006, for example, every single appropriations bill was debated, amended and passed in the senate. look at it. 2006, every one was passed and considered and voted on in here. and that was good. that's better than we've been doing in the previous years. there were spotty failures during the previous years. but in 2013, here we are here, the red is -- indicates that no bill was passed in the senate. in 2013 and again in 2014, none were individually passed, all the funding was done as part of this omnibus process. so i want my colleagues to look at this one more time.

the green shows that the bill was brought forward to the floor and was passed. the yellow says it was brought forward out of committee but not passed on the floor. and the red says it wasn't even brought to the floor or brought out of committee to the floor to be considered. and you see how the red has continued in the outyears. what's happening today, colleagues, is contrary to good policy, it's contrary to the whole idea of what a senate and a congress ought to be doing, and we've got to stop it. i know we've had a lot of frustrations lately but that does not excuse this trend. it's got to end. in my first year as a senator,

1998, the second year, i guess i'm a senator, every bill was passed. every bill was passed in 2010. but we've just gotten away from that completely. we can go back to that. it's not impossible. so those bills and when i first came here were all debated and amended on the floor and went to conference with the house to settle our disagreements and then a bill was sent to the president for his signature or veto. over time, however, that's happened less and less frequently to the point that nowadays we don't debate appropriations bills at all. and look, senator mikulski is a great leader in the senate and one of the people i admire greatly, and so is senator

shelby and others. and how we got into this process, i don't know. but i would just say this -- i think it's fair to say that republicans have clearly advocated for bringing the bills to the floor and having debates on them. i as ranking on the budget committee have clearly advocated we process a budget like we're supposed to do. but senator reid has made the decision, backed by his conference, to not bring these bills up, and it's a political decision. it's a decision to avoid having to take votes on disputed questions of what ought to be funded and what ought not to be funded. that's the problem we're in. so we've crammed all this -- appropriations into this huge, huge bill.

under threat of gown. a more ominous development, however, is the breakdown of the appropriations process in the senate and how it's infecting the house, the house of representatives, and it's spreading like the plague over there. in the first year of their majority the house worked and passed and marked up six appropriations bills of the 12, and sent them to the senate, but the senate didn't consider a single one of them. last year the house passed eight appropriations bills and sent them over to the senate. again, the senate didn't act, refused to consider them individually. this year the futility of the house's efforts began to show as the house passed only four bills. why should they pass them and send them to the senate if it's not going to be considered on the floor in a normal regular order? so they're beginning to erode

what they've been doing. all of us, both parties, have a responsibility to reverse these trends. all of us have the responsibility to return to regular order. it's in the national interest, it's the riept thing to do. all of us owe our constituents an open, deliberative process where the great issues of the debate are debated in full and public view. each senator must stand and be counted on these issues, not hide under the table and avoid being held accountable. the democratic process is messy. sometimes contentious. and often difficult. people disagree. but it is precisely this legislative tug of war, this back and forth, which forges a national consensus. while secret deals may keep the trains running on time in the short run, they also keep the

train -- sometimes they keep the trains running in the wrong direction, a direction different than what the american people would like to see. sometimes it hides bad spending, bad appropriations, bad legislation that ought to be exposed in the light of day. secret deals rushed through without public involvement only deepen our divisions, delay progress, increase distrust, and make it harder to achieve the kinds of real reforms that the american people have been thirsting for and demanding. having to cast many votes on tough issues really does clarify those issues. and what the differences are amongst us. i believe that process, i truly believe, openly conducted, can lay the ground work for more progress than we have today and reduce contention. it will clarify facts and then

lead to the finding of common ground. only through an open legislative process can we create the kind of dialogue, the kind of debate, and ultimately the kind of change necessary to put this country back on the right track. i'm going to continue to work to restore the regular order. i really believe it's important. i respect my colleagues. i'm hearing more and more my democratic colleagues expressing these same concerns and i think there is some unease at the extent of which this process in the senate has been undermined. maybe -- maybe we can make progress and return to the great open debate and regular order that has made the senate the wonder of the legislative world. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

ms. mikulski: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be vacated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: madam president, what is pending before the united states senate is something called the consolidated appropriations bill. it's consolidated because it's consolidates the work of 12 separate subcommittees. as the chair of the full committee, i also chair a subcommittee called commerce, justice, science, which i'd like to say what we did in our bill to advance really the protection of the united states in terms of federal law enforcement, important domestic violence programs but also we promoted trade and new ideas in science. i'd like to share what we did. but before i do, i want to explain, many people don't understand the difference between the budget committee and

the appropriations committee. the budget committee gives us the macropicture, what should be spent in discretionary spending, mandatory spending, like virnts veterans' benefits which i believe should be mandatory and what our tax policy should be. senator murray of washington state led that effort, we passed that bill in april. we tried to go to the floor but there was objection -- i mean go to conference but there was objection to it. finally after three weeks of shutdown we were able to get a budget, and this committee's job was given the job after the budget was passed to do the work of the appropriations committee. the appropriations committee takes the work of the budget committee and puts it in the federal checkbook line by line.

now, i'd like to elaborate on that, but i know that the gentlelady from new hampshire has come to the floor, one of our newer members of the committee. but she's not new to good government. she comes to the united states senate with an incredible background, serving new hampshire, particularly in the executive branch as governor. she brings a sense of what government can do but that yankee frugality that new hampshire is known for. so, madam president, i'm going to yield the floor at this time so the gentlelady from new hampshire may speak. mrs. shaheen: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you very much to the esteemed chair of the appropriations committee for your kind words and especially for all of the work that you have done to get us to this point where we have an appropriations bill before us. i know you have worked very hard

with ranking member shelby, with the house appropriations committee chair hal rogers and ranking member lowey, and that it is really your leadership in reaching an agreement on this bill to fund government for the rest of 2014 and to do it in a way that will support job creation, economic growth and our national security. so thank you very much madam chair. as you point out, i am a new member of the appropriations committee, i'm currently the chair of the labor subcommittee, and -- legislative -- legislative branch subcommittee. i work with senator hoeven, it's been a pleasure to work with him. for new hampshire this bill includes funding for the continued development of the new ck-46-a aerial refueling tanker which we're very proud is going to be the first round of those tankers are going to be based at

pease air national guard base in new hampshire. it also makes investments in the military construction project at the portsmouth naval shipyard and we're very proud in new hampshire of both pease and the shipyard because they play are a very important role in our national defense and these strategic investments are going to create jobs there, they're going to boost the state's economy and support our men and women in uniform. i'm also very pleased that this omnibus bill in front of us funds the beyond yellow ribbon program. this is a program that connects service men and women and their families with community support, with training and with other services. and as we look at the men and women coming back from iraq and afghanistan, yellow ribbon has been has been a very important program to help reconnect those returning service members to their community. it's also been very important in

new hampshire. we have many of our national guard and reserve who have returned from duty overseas and that yellow ribbon program is critical. the legislation before us also funds the complete activation of the berlin prison, just as it funds the bureau of prisons. in new hampshire, that funding is going to allow us to get to a full complement of about 340 local jobs in northern new hampshire, very critical to the northern part of our state. it's going to provide a $40 million annual boost to the economy in northern new hampshire. and i'm especially appreciative to the chairwoman of the committee and all of the members for the effort to help the fishing men and women in new hampshire who have just been devastated by declining fish populations. the bill