human needs that are in the health and human services and education, we want to get more value for the dollar. we don't want to get more bureaucracy for the dollar. so i want to say to the gentleman from oklahoma, as we -- we appreciate his withdrawing his amendment. we know that the gentleman from wyoming, senator enzi, has offered an amendment to get a report as well. but we're going to, i say that as we look at our appropriations for this year, i invite you, sir, with the greatest sincerity and a pledge -- a pledge to you as the word of a senator, let's sit down, review these documents, and let's see how we can put -- put this suggestions that you have in action. i look forward to it and quite frankly i'm seeinger to see what we can get done. mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i want to join in this a little bit because i recognize two things about the senator from oklahoma, one, he's been out front in trying as the senator from maryland said get value for the taxpayers' dollar and second, he's working in a cooperative way to help us get a result. those are two great characteristics in a body of 100 people that operates by unanimous consent. i'm grateful for that. on the first point i agree with the early childhood money. we really have about $18 billion there. from various streams of federal dollars that are aimed at children below 5 or 6. then we have state dollars, then we have local dollars, then we have private dollars, and we've grappled with ways to try to make sure we spend that more effectively. one way is to emphasize centers of excellence like nashville or

denver or jersey city where they try to put all that money together. i'm committed to work with senator harkin and senator mikulski to take the research that senator coburn has done and see if we can consolidate and streamline and get more value for early childhood. and second, he's called attention to a problem that i would appreciate his help in solving with this amendment, his millionaires' amendment which we'll be voting on in a little while. and let me give him an example, if i may. the application form that students for college fill out is -- is ridiculous. i mean if i had it in my hand and held it up here, it would go from up here all the way to the floor. it's a hundred questions quest. we had testimony in our committee that if we just answered two in 95% of the cases it would be accurate. one, what's your family income two years ago and two, how many people in your family. the other 5% is the problem

because there could be abuse there of the kind you're talking about here. and what i would like to do and i think there are others here would like to do is to simplify the application form for college but do it in such a way we make sure the money goes where it's supposed to go. he would you have a hundred questions to fill out of complicated stuff, it discourages a lot of low-income people from going to college who we hope would, itways time and money -- it wastes time and money of administrators of many of these families are not families with college degrees and accountants to help them fill out these long things. we need the senator from oklahoma's help when we get to that discussion sometime of how do we simplify the form of application for federal grants and loans and still with that 5% that remains, how do we narrow that cowandown to four, three, two, one, to make sure almost

all the money we're appropriating goes where it's supposed to go. i salute him for both amendments, i look forward to supporting his amendment on child care block grants and hope it's a first step for dealing with the misapplication of federal dollars that's really aimed to help people move up the economic ladder. thank you mr. chairman. -- madam chairman. i yield the floor.

mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin:: -- we're not in a

quorum call -- if i can have the attention of senator alexander and senator burr. i'm about to propose a unanimous consent. madam president, i ask unanimous consent that at 12:15 p.m. today the senate proceed to votes in relation to the following amendments in the order listed, coburn number 2830 as modified, portman number 2827, tester number 2834, thune number 2838, warren number 2842, bennet number 2839 as modified, and further, that no second-degree amendments be in order to any of these amendments prior to the votes. the presiding officer: is there objection?

without objection, so ordered. mr. harkin: madam president, for the information of all senators it is our understanding we will need one roll call vote in this sequence and the remaining amendments can be disposed of by voice vote. so i ask consent that the pending amendments be set aside and the following amendments be made pending. portman number 2827, tester number 2834, thune number 2838, warren number 2842, bennet 2839 as modified. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: is there objection? ms. landrieu: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: i realize the senator is trying to move through this bill and fully support, and thank you for the amendments. does the senator know what the action of this bill will be and it's the intention to do final passage on this bill today?

ms. harkin: i, mr. harkin: i hope we will have final passage, we're working through it, down to a couple of amendments, i haven't seen any others pop up right now. i'm hopeful we'll have this series of votes, people go to lunch and come back and hopefully dispose of a couple more amendments and have final passage. ms. landrieu: so final passage could be potentially -- is it your understanding through the chair about 3:00 or so? mr. harkin: if we don't have any extended kind of debate and people on the floor, i would say that certainly by -- go out of my way here and say probably by at least by 3:00, i would hope we would be finished. maybe even before if we work out the agreements on a couple of amendments, we might even be before that. ms. landrieu: thank you. mr. harkin: i thank the senator. the presiding officer: is there objection to the unanimous consent request? without objection.

the clerk will report the amendments en bloc. the clerk: the senator from iowa mr. harkin for others proposes amendments number 2827, 2834, 2838, 2842, and 2839 as modified. mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: i ask unanimous consent that at the following

disposition of the bennet amendment, the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc, calendar number 634, 625, and 550, that the senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed, the motions to reconsider be made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order, that any related statements be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate then resume legislative session, further that there be two minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form prior to each vote and that the votes be 10 minutes in length. the presiding officer: is there objection? if not, so ordered. mr. harkin: i'm told, madam president, that the ones that we're bringing up we expect them to be just voice voted this

afternoon. thank you. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question now occurs on amendment number 2830. offered by the senator from oklahoma, mr. coburn. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 100, the nays are zero. the amendment is agreed to. the senator from iowa.

without objection. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2827 offered by the senator from ohio, mr. portman. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes appear to have it, the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2834 offered by the senator from montana, mr. tester. all those in favor say aye. all opposed, nay. the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to.

under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2838 offered by the senator from south dakota, mr. thune. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2842 offered by the senator from massachusetts, ms. warren. all those in favor say aye. all opposed, say nay. the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. under the previous order, the question now occurs on amendment number 2839, as modified,

offered by the senator from colorado, mr. bennet. all knows in favor say aye. all opposed, say nay. the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. -- as modified. mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: madam, i move to table all the previous voice votes that we just had and then to lay that on the table. the presiding officer: does the senator wish to move to reconsider? mr. harkin: i move to reconsider and then move to lay that reconsideration on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations which the clerk will report. the clerk: dment of state, puneet talwar to benant secretary. legal services corporation, joseph pius pietrzyk to be a

member of the board of directors. department of state, dwight l. bush sr., of the district of columbia, to be ambassador of the united states of america to the kingdom of morocco. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form prior to a vote on the talwar nomination. who he would i d i do yields ti? mr. burr: madam president, we would yield back the two minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. all time is yielded back. the question occurs on the nomination. all those in favor say aye. all opposed, say nay. the ayes have it. the nomination is confirmed.

under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form prior to a vote on the pietrzyk mom nation. -- nomination. who yields time? mr. harkin: we yield back our time. the presiding officer: without objection, all time is yielded back. and the question occurs on the pietrzyk nomination. all knows i those in favor say . all opposed, nay. the ayes have it. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form prior to a vote on the bush nomination. who yields time? mr. harkin: madam president, we yield back all time. -- on this side. the presiding officer: without objection, all time is yielded back. the question occurs on the bush nomination.

all senators in favor say aye. all opposed, say nay. the ayes have it. and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate will now resume legislative session. mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: madam president, we -- i think the end is in sight here, hopefully o, on this bill. our stastles have been working hard. -- our staffs have been working hard. we've all been working hard to get amendments out. i know both sides have conference lunches that are

taking place now, and we're going to stay here. but we hope that shortly after these lunches conclude that we'll be able to move ahead. as i understand it, there's about three amendments pending p. we don't know whether they will have votes or not, but we're workinworking on that right nowd so i home w hope we can hopefuli said before, at least before 3:00 have final passage on this bill. my friend from north carolina concurs in that. is that the wait we see it? the presiding officer: the snrthesenator from north caroli. mr. burr: i do concur in that. i would urge those members that might be the subject of us trying to work out some language on their amendments, if they've not spoken on them, that they exercise the opportunity between 1:00 and 2:00 while the conferences are at lunch to come down and speak on those amendments. but we're confident. we've made tremendous progress,

and we think we can wrap this up shortly after lunch on the remaining amendments as well as on passage on the bill. mr. harkin: absolutely. madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. udall: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. udall: i would ask to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: and i'd like to speak for ten minutes in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: madam president, new mexico is blessed with some of the world's finest scientists. each day brilliant researchers at our universities and national labs go to work and the results are amazing. at the same time entrepreneurs in new mexico and across the country are looking for

opportunities to leverage innovation and to create new high-tech products and applications. i rise today to introduce the accelerating technology transfer to advance innovation for the nation, what we're calling the attain act. that's a long title and an important goal to improve the department of energy's technology transfer mission and to move innovation from the lab to the market. this grows our economy and creates a greater impact from our research and development dollars. but before i talk to you about what the bill does, i want to explain why it's so important. tech transfer may seem like some technical issue affecting bureaucratic rules or regulations, but it's more. it's how innovations in the lab today help create jobs tomorrow. in the 21st century our

national labs are the birthplace of innovations that create new products and businesses and entire industries. scientists are developing cutting-edge ways to power computers, to transmit new information, to heal the body. these innovations have great market potential in aviation, the military, medicine. they can be spun into high-tech businesses, changing the world, putting people to work. in new mexico many companies have been formed as a result of discoveries at los alamos and sandia national labs. for example, mustomo is a start-up using technology developed at lanl. they provide 3-d tomography for the detection of breast cancer. and technology from sandia used by team technologies has created a device than that can disable

improvised explosive devices. since 2010, over 4,000 units have been deployed and are saving lives in war zones right now. but despite these amazing successes, we are operating at just a fraction of the potential. my home state could do so much more. new mexico has all the ingredients to become a high-tech powerhouse. great minds at our national labs and military bases, fantastic universities, and a booming energy industry. we need to create an environment to allow it to reach that potential. this is a major initiative of mine to help create the right formula to help industry take off in new mexico. that's the purpose of my bill. almost a decade ago, congress created a department of energy technology transfer coordinator to move innovation from the lab bench to the marketplace.

to spur businesses and cutting-edge product development in new mexico and across the nation. to help entrepreneurs outside of the big-city power houses on the coast get access to capital, to help them find partners in industries industry. but the department hasn't come close to meeting its potential. a recent inspector general's report tells the story. it cited numerous deficiencies at d.o.e. the department is over seven years delinquent in finalizing its technology transfer execution plan. nor has d.o.e. implemented a forward looking process for its commercialization fund. over two years after being directed to do so by the former secretary. in addition the technology transfer coordinator post at the department has been event since april, 2013. that's nearly one year after the previous coordinator's

departure. this position should be filled as quickly as possible with a qualified and motivated candidate. technology transfer is important in new mexico and to the nation, and the department's failure to perform is unacceptable. my bill addresses these shortfalls. we can do better and we have to. the first step is to make tech transfer a priority. our goals are clear, consolidate bureaucracy, streamline contracting and use models that have proven successful. there are three key elements to my legislation. first, it permanently authorizes new tools for the secretary of energy's new departmentwide technology transfer office. to enable d.o.e. and d.o.e.'s new tech transfer coordinator to meet their responsibilities and to measure and report their progress. better coordination is absolutely crucial, so we can reduce barriers and efficiently use the limited resources

available. my bill requires that this office be accountable and responsible, that it work with the national labs and with industry in a way -- in the right way at the department. and fully implement the epac energy commercialization fund, something d.o.e. as yet to do according to congress' original intent. second, the bill authorizes a new tech transfer corps modeled on the national science foundation's innovation corps to support investments in entrepreneurs, mentors, scientists and engineers. it authorizes technology commercialization challenges that push getting innovate technologies -- innovative technologies into the market and also pull enabling partnerships with industry to identify and focus on common challenges. it will also improve coordination of technology

transfer and entrepreneurship priorities with universities, foundations and nonprofits, both regionally and nationally. and third, we adapt an existing public-private partnership model used by the small business administration and apply it to technology transfer to increase access to capital for promising start-up companies, and we're not asking for more money. we need to do more with what we have. we're not asking -- and i want to emphasize that. we aren't asking for more money. we need to do more with what we have. the bill requires d.o.e. and s.b.a. to work together to use the strengths of each agency. d.o.e.'s innovative technology and s.b.a.'s financial action could you men and increases -- action ewe men and increases the technologies via the impact

initiative including matching funds up to $1 billion and the early stage initiative includes $1 billion more. this collaboration addresses an important concern. since 2008, less than 6% of these venture capital funds have been invested in seed funds and tech maturation and 70% went into just three states, california, new york, and massachusetts. there are great opportunities outside these three are states. this bill will help those funds find them, states like new mexico have a surplus of innovative ideas and the lack of investment dollars. with this bill, we can balance that equation. the benefits are clear. new technology, new partnerships, and new opportunities. cutting-edge research today means high-paying jobs tomorrow. american inventions and intellectual property fuel our economy.

75 u.s. industries are classified as intellectual property intensive. they added $5.8 trillion to the u.s. output last year p. they are 38% of our g.d.p. they directly or indirectly supply over 55 million jobs, jobs that on average pay 30% higher wages. these i.p. companies account for 74% of our exports. we need to do all we can to support innovation and to improve technology transfer. the bridge between new discovery and new opportunity, to grow our economy, to create high-paying jobs. i believe this is something we can all support. last august, i cohosted a tech transfer conference in santa fe. i met with nearly 200 of new mexico's most successful entrepreneurs, innovators and investors. we talked about the challenges

and opportunities of technology transfer and how important it is to the future. we have already succeeded by being one step ahead of the competition. american innovation has led the world. in industry and health care and transportation, in science and technology, the attain act will help move that innovation from the lab to the marketplace. helping businesses grow, creating jobs, and keeping us competitive in a global marketplace. for a student with a bright idea, for an entrepreneur with a drive to chase their dream, it can be a long road. fortunately they don't give up easily. they are as tough -- they are as tough as they come. they are already giving so much with hard work, with taking risks, they do their part. d.o.e. needs to do its part as well. we all want to move innovation forward and to better coordinate

the hand-offs. i'm committed to working with the department of energy to make this a reality. this is an important goal and it should be an equally important priority, and that is why i'm introducing this bill today. thank you madam chair and i would yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: madam president, thank you. i rise today to thank my colleagues for passing a moment ago an important amendment to this underlying bill. it's an amendment to provide for evidence-based training and efforts that promote early language development and literacy development. this is important for kids to get them ready for kindergarten and i appreciate on a voice vote that was passed earlier this afternoon. i now rise, madam president, to urge the senate to support a child safety amendment that i

have introduced to the child care and development block grant bill. i want to thank senator alexander, senator burr bur, senator mikulski, senator harkin for their help on this amendment. i like the underlying legislation. i think it's a good bill because i think it goes a long way to ensuring that our federal dollars are spent in a way that keeps our children in safe learning environments. i believe my amendment makes a good bill even better. currently the legislation prohibits individuals convicted of a felony from working in a facility funded by these federal block grants. by limiting it to felonies, we're leaving a pool of individuals convicted of crimes against children eligible for employment in this setting where they could prey on vulnerable kids. so the amendment simply expands to ensure we are covering those people, ensures the health and safety of children by clarifying

those convicted of child abuse, child endangerment, sexual assault or a misdemeanor involving child pornography are also identified in criminal background checks and not permitted to work in a child care facility that receives support through these child care and development block grants. let me give you a couple of examples that under the bill as currently drafted would not prevent an individual from working in a child care facility funded by the legislation. in my state of ohio we just had a terrible example. an ohio daycare worker was accused of springling drugs on snacks to get children to sleep. she was fined 250 bucks and had her charges reduced to a misdemeanor county of child endangerment after a plea agreement. so she didn't get charged with a felony in the end because she pled it down to a misdemeanor but clearly you don't want someone like this working in one of these facilities. there are lots of other

examples. a utah woman pled guilty to two class a misdemeanors for child abuse. abuse charges were reduced from five felonies for intentionally inflicting serious injury on a child. she had been arrested for abusing her daughter. according to a police report, she hit her daughter with a closed fist and choked her but she pled guilty to two misdemeanors because of the plea agreement. these are a couple of cases. there are many more and just ones decided in the last few months. under the legislation as currently written these individuals would be eligible to work in a child care facility that receives federal funds. so, madam president, this amendment is very simple, it only seeks to protect children and bar individuals who would commit crimes against the most vulnerable among us from receiving federal tax dollars. i urge my colleagues to accept amendment today and again thank the authors of the underlying bill for working closely with us on this amendment to improve legislation that is already a

good bill that's doing a lot to protect our kids. i yield back my time. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: madam president, i'd like to take a few minutes to talk about, as we talk about about passing new laws, i'd like to take a few minutes to talk about enforcing the laws that the congress has already passed. i want to talk today about something that i believe is -- has been pushed to the wayside too many times by the current administration and, madam president, that would be the constitution of the united states. article 2, section 3 of the united states constitution declares that the president coming right out of the constitution, says the president -- quote -- "shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed." simply put, constitutional

requirements are just that. they're constitutional requirements. they're not constitutional suggestions, this is not something that the constitution doesn't clearly define. the branches of government in the constitution are the judicial, the legislative, and the executive, and the job of the executive is, again, to do what? to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. yet time and again, president obama has refused to enforce the law and has shown a willingness, fangly, to misuse -- frankly, to misuse regulations in my view to sidestep the congress, to sidestep what the law intended to do and, more importantly, to step around the constitution. whether it is using waivers to states for the work requirements contained in the bipartisan welfare reform act of 1996 or announcing yet another change -- and we're now over two dozen

changes -- and delays in the president's own health care law, the current administration has sought ways over and over again to circumvent the congress by picking and choosing which laws it wants to enforce. clearly, not a power given the president in the constitution. in fact, there is a reason that the legislative branch is article 1 of the constitution, because the founders clearly saw the legislative branch as the branch that would determine the direction of the country and the president's job was not to write the law. the president's job was to execute the law, to enforce the law. people all over america are rightly concerned about government overreach. they're rightly concerned about government dysfunction. they're rightly concerned about a senate that hasn't brought the appropriations bills to the floor the way they should come

to the floor for over seven years now, so we're not debating our priorities. but it's the overreach, the dysfunction, the lack of compliance with the law, and the seeming belief that somehow that's the president's job to died which laws we comply with as a country and which ones we don't, which laws the government enforces and which ones it doesn't enforce. that's not the president's job. i introduced a bill this week to stop this overreach and to force president obama to uphold the constitution. the enforce the law act, which is cosponsored by more than half of my republican senate colleagues and which passed the house yesterday, permits congress to authorize a lawsuit against the president if he fails to uphold his constitutional obligation to

uphold the law. now, whenever we're asked, all of us, as members of the senate by people that we work for, how can the president just decide he's not going to enforce the law, one of the reasons we've all truthfully given to the other question of what are you going to do about it is that, at this point, there's no standing of individual members of congress or even the entire body of the senate or the body of the house to go to court and say, we have standing in court to have this law enforced. this bill would become law and a law that would give the congress that standing. it effectively permits the congress, either house of the congress, to authorize a lawsuit against the president if he fails to uphold his constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the law. now, if the president has a defense, this is a lawsuit.

his side goes -- can go to court and defend that. but if he doesn't have a defense, he has sworn, as we have, to uphold the constitution. this isn't a partisan matter. this bill is important because it gives congress the ability to combat executive disregard for the congress, no matter what party controls the white house, or no matter what party controls the congress. the courts have ruled that individual members of congress lack stand bein standing to take administration to court. we are not a so-called aggrieved party. that's why members, whenl i whet was the national labor relations board case where the president thought he could decide whether the senate was in session or not instead of the senate deciding whether the senate was in session -- i joined many of my colleagues to file an amicus brief -- i am not a lawyer, but i'm able to do that as a citizen -- to file a an amicus brief, a

friend-of-the-court brief saying why we thought the president was wrong and why we thought the people who were challenging the rules that this group created that were put in power in an unconstitutional way, we could file that, but we couldn't initiate that. we couldn't go to court and say, we believe that the law is not being enforced. the enforce act removes that procedural barrier so that a suit brought by a member of the house, a member of the senate can be empowered to bring a lawsuit in federal court challenging the administration's refusal to enforce the law, challenging the administration's belief that on their own they can suspend the law, they can postpone the law, they can delay the law. now, if the law gives the president the ability to do that, it's going to be in the clear black-and-white letters of the law; it's not there now.

the enforce act provides an expedited process so that if this lawsuit is initiated this way by one or both houses of the congress against the administration for not faithfully executing the law it goes immediately to a three-judge panel in the u.s. district court and then goes directly to the supreme court, if there is an appeal. this is an easy way to solve this problem. it's a way that creates standing to define who is constitutionally obligated to do a job that they are not doing. it is time we reestablished the proper limits on the executive branch. the founders believed in separation of powers. it is the responsibility of the congress to protect the idea they came up with in a document for the first time that was a gofgoverning document, the ideaf

checks and balances. you eliminate that idea of checks and balances, you eliminate the miracle of the constitution. i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me and others in supporting this effort to stop executive overreach and encourage the president to enforce the law. the constitution still matters. the constitution deserves to be defended. this is a way that the members of the congress of the united states can give themselves the ability to launch that defense. arntiondand, again, i urge my cs to join me in supporting this bill that the house passed just yesterday. all we have to do, to do our part, is step forward and pass this legislation now. and i would notice the lack of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call: