our nation's young people and their families are burdened with extraordinary debt, $1.2 trillion of student loan debt. this exceeds the aggregate, the total auto loan, credit card and home equity debt balances in america, making student loans the second-largest debt of the u.s. households following mortgages. today the average student graduates from college with around $29,000 in loans. in new jersey, that sum is up from the average of 27,000 in 2011 to 23,792 in 2010. more than 16% of my constituents now have student debt. that's over one million new jerseyans who are weighed down by a significant financial obligation that limits the amount of money they're able to put back into the economy.

in buying homes, and investing in their futures, in pursuing their american dream. reduced purchasing power due to high student loan debt not only holds back families' day-to-day spending but keeps them from making those large investments. i believe it's irresponsible and shortsighted for us to think that we can saddle young people people, the true engines of our economy, with this burden and maintain our position as the world's most powerful economy. historically the united states has done things differently. we were the leader in expanding college student. from the g.i. bill following world war ii to pell grant in 1980 we have taken bold steps to ensure that americans have access to college regardless of their ability to pay their way entirely on their own. we created these programs because we understood that an

educated work force is essential to our nation's economic competitiveness, the most valuable natural resource any nation on the planet has is the genius and mental acuity of its people. without highly killed workers, without trained minds, without that opportunity that comes with higher education, america simply won't be able to compete as well in the global economy. the cost of college in america puts our young people at a disadvantage compared to their peers. we are not leading. we are lagging. and these obstacles to a college education, it's not a level playing field. we are disadvantaging our young people in their fight to compete and lead against other nations who are doing so much more. take this important data point.

more 51% of the median income is the cost of college in the united states. while the cost of college in germany is just 4.3% of that country's median income. in canada, it's about 5%. in england, it's about 6%. compare that to us. 51% of median income is the united states, less than 7% in canada and england and germany, our competitors. we should be doing everything in our power to encourage forthcoming generations to pursue higher education so we don't slide further in global rankings and compromise our ability to compete. because where we used to lead the globe in percentage of our population with a college education, now we lag, and i'm telling you, we cannot be the leading economy if we are the lagging nation in education. i want to commend my

colleagues, including senator harkin and senator reed, warren and gillibrand who have been so active even before i came to this body in calling attention to this issue. i urge my colleagues to step up and be a part of preserving this grand american tradition of college access which is so essential to the other grand tradition in our nation of social mobility. no matter where you're born, no matter what your economic status, no matter what your color or your creed, this is the nation that if you have grit and toughness, discipline and hard work, where you can make it and we are a country who will remove those obstacles and allow genius to be made manifest. i hope that we can begin to get bills like this that are so commonsense, this idea that we can refinance student debt, to

the point where we can discuss the bills on the floor and they can escape that trap, that trap of filibuster. and, madam president, before yielding too much i'd like to just -- the floor i'd like to cover another topic very quickly. i want to take this moment to spret express my deepest condolences to the families of the victims involved in a tragic tractor trailer accident saturday night on the new jersey turnpike. my thoughts and prayers go out to the individuals injured in the crash and i obviously wish them a full recovery. we owe many thanks to the emergency personnel who responded to this weekend's accidents -- accident and countless others who worked tirelessly along our highways to keep them safe. during times like this, though, we must ask ourselves, could this tragedy and so many others in new jersey and across our nation along our highways,

could these tragedies be prevented with common sense? it's too early to tell, but i am grateful to the national transportation safety board in investigating this particular accident thoroughly and i eagerly await their findings. but in the meantime, it is worth reviewing what we do know. larger and heavier trucks cause greater damage when collisions occur. it's just physics. this is why there are rules governing truck size and weight limitations on our highways. i have concerns about any attempts to increase truck size and weight limits, and i hope that sound data and science will inform our decisions. the decisions that this body must make on that issue. but another major highway problem, one that i know is affecting the lives of families

coast to coast, is the problem with driver fatigue. studies show that fatigue contributes to 30% to 40% of all major accidents, all major truck accidents. 30% to 40% of truck accidents are contributed to by fatigue. when drivers don't get enough rest, when they're more tired, they are much, much more likely to get into an accident. that's why there are limitations in place on the number of hours truck drivers may work in any given week. i'm concerned about any efforts to weaken those rules, which would allow people to push the limits of human exhaustion even further, and will therefore, create an environment where more accidents are possible.

the bottom line is that truck accidents and the deaths and injuries caused by them are actually increasing in america. i look forward to working with my colleagues in the senate to take a serious look at what we can do to improve the safety of our highways. thank you, madam president, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: i come to the floor as we get ready to vote on the veterans bill to make several points and would like to begin by commending senators sanders and ca mccain. they have obviously acted quickly, they have acted responsibly and they are taking up some of the most extraordinary concerns that

really have come to light in the last few weeks regarding the access our veterans have to medical care. i think it would be fair to say that every single senator, every senator, is grateful for the immeasurable sacrifices that veterans make for the nation. these are men and women who give up years of their lives to serve our country, willingly head into harm's way and they suffer misand mental wounds all too often. and many of the veterans of the wars in iraq and afghanistan -- and i've seen this in my home state -- have volunteered for three and four and five tours of duty. what's indisputable is this -- the senate understands that when our veterans come home, the health care systems -- the health care services they receive must be second to none. i believe that strongly and i

believe it is a concern widely shared here in the senate. and that is why, madam president, the reports of long wait times and falsified records are so appalling. the v.a. audit that came out this week showed, for example, how hard veterans in my home state of oregon have been hit. more than 3,000 oregon veterans couldn't be seen by a doctor within 90 days at the portland v.a. facility. nearly 3,500 faced the same wait times at the roseburg v.a. facility. many oregon veterans who rely on the boise and walla walla facilities got similar treatment. and investigation -- an investigation, moreover, is underway to determine how things deteriorated and deteriorated so rapidly. it's pretty obvious that these

kinds of findings, madam president, are inexcusable and they are unconscionable, and veterans deserve the best, and senators sanders and mccain deserve credit for working in a bipartisan way, a way that is too rare here in washington, d.c., to address this challenge. it is never easy to work in a bipartisan way, and i commend them. i want to also raise today one part of the bill that i believe has to be resolved and can be resolved before the legislation gets to the president's desk. the legislation currently directs many of our veterans to medicare's doctors and specialists. now, at first glance that might not raise questions, but i wanted to bring up the possibility of some unintended

consequences. right now, madam president, there is a mandated 2% cut on payments for medicare services because of across-the-board sequestration, and that is still in effect. however, that particular spending cut, that spending reduction, does not apply to treatment for veterans. so in effect -- and i know this was completely unintended -- this could create an incentive for physicians -- and we already don't have enough of them caring for seniors, who rely on medicare -- it could create an incentive for doctors to take the veteran patient over our nation's seniors. and i think no senator, no senator, wants that to happen.

i have talked about this with chairman sanders, with senator mccain. they certainly don't want that false choice. i think it would be fair to say no one wants to see seniors pitted against veterans, and all seniors want -- senators want the best possible care for both our older people and our veterans. the problem, however, -- and all senators are familiar with this -- medicare patients often are already waiting in line to see their doctors. in fact, many of the underperforming v.a. facilities are located in communities that have difficulty meeting the current demand for care. this is especially true in some medical fields that are absolutely crucial for our veterans, particularly primary care and mental health. now, it's important to note

that the other body, the house, has picked up on an idea that i and others have advanced in order to resolve this matter. so this is an opportunity for the senate and the house in a bipartisan way to work together. i've talked to leaders of the veterans committee in the house, and my sense is that we now have the house fully supportive of a way to resolve this issue and ensure that despite the fact that the veterans funds are not sequestered and the seniors funds, the medicare funds are, there would be a way to resolve this, and that simply be to stipulate that any credentialed provider could contract with the v.a. to treat veterans. that way, in effect we would

ensure that both seniors and veterans would get the care that they need. it in effect would put the senate and the other body on the same wave length, and it's a simple fix, madam president,. we just allow our veterans to meet with any licensed clinical provider, not just the medicare providers. so, in closing, i want to commend again chairman sanders, senator mccain for first-rate work accomplished at really landspeed record timing. as chairman of the finance committee which has jurisdiction and a long history with respect to medicare, i want them and our cleation in thcolleagues in they know that the finance committee is very anxious to work with all concerned to make sure that the feignal version of this

legislation -- the bill that we hope goes to the president's desk as soon as possible -- that it addresses what is best for both veterans and seniors. i'm confident that by working together, democrats and republicans, senate and house, we can achieve that revolution before the bill gets to the president's desk. madam president, with that, i yield the floor and -- i yield the floor. ms. cantwell: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: thank you, madam president. i rise to express my disappointment in today's earlier vote that we weren't able to pass the student refinancing legislation. i want to thank my colleague, senator warren, for sponsoring that bill and for my colleagues who did support that, and i hope that we will have chance to bring it legislation up again and get bipartisan support and get it passed. we can agree that education is the gateway to opportunity. i was the first in my college to

go to college and went to school with the help of financial aid. i know how important it is to many students in the state of washington that we help them makmake education more affordab. student debt has quadrupled over the last ten years. many students in my state are anxious about the situation and want to do something about it. student debt has even surpassed credit card debt. the fact that student debt is enough to pay every american tion credit card balance and still have $450 billion left over tells you how much debt is being accumulated on behalf of students, just to get an education, just to basically make their way in a changing economy. arntiondz you know, we did live in an information age and it means that everybody having a good base education and being able to dapt a adapt as new infn comes along that changes industry is going to be

important. student debt is the second most important debt only behind mortgages puts a drag on our economy. we scwhrus a roun just had a roe state of washington and these students talked about how they were trying to invest in he in r own skills. and many of the stories they told were not really out of the ordinary but i think it is something we don't think about. these individual were talking about how they were trying to get an education. other people in their family, their brothers and sisters, were trying to get an education and their parents were also trying to upgrade their skills because in an information-age economy, that's what happens. everybody has to upgrade their skills. so these students are trying to do something. but i was really moved by one student who said, i have a debt that seems to be the size of a mortgage for me, but i don't have the house that goes along with t he was trying to say, i'm

coming out of college with incredible debt and how am i going to even afford the basic things that people look forward to, maybe not right after graduation but as they start their careers and they start to move forward? these are individual whose contribute to our economy. they buy cars. they buy homes, everything. but this individual, a graduate of central washington university, told me that he pays the same amount for rent as he does for student loans every month. so in washington state, the average student borrower owes more than $23,000 before they graduate. that's an increase of 22% over the last five years. $4,000 for the average student borrower at the university of washington. so over the next weeks, thousands of students in washington state will walk across and get their diploma, but when they accept the diploma and go into the world of opportunity, they will also be going with a lot of debt. we also heard from another student at the university of

washington how at this point in her career she graduates the debt will be almost $100,000. so she wants to pursue a career, but when she thinks about how much she has to pay on that student loan, that's going to affect that. in fact, during her time at the university of washington, there were points in which she worked 60 hours a week. now, i don't know how anybody can continue their education and work 60 hours a week. so these are students who want to be able to refinance and pay down. in this case, somebody who has a 6% or 7%, this bill, legislation, would allow them to refinance. the legislation, an undergraduate of $30,000 in student loans would save almost $5,000 over the life of their loan by refinancing, if it was 6.8% to the current undergraduate direct interest rate of 3.86%.

so that is real dollars to these individuals. that means much-needed help for 25 million borrowers across the country. it could save, on afnlings on a, $2,000 per loan. so our students from everywhere across the state -- i don't know if we have that chart -- the university of washington and pacific -- in the pacific northwest took action into their own hands and produce add report. the report showed that the typical university of washington student would have to work 54 hours a week for a full year to pay for one year of student education. so this is -- i'm so proud that these students did their own report and got it on the front page of the seattle times because it spells out what we already have known.

the days when the students could raise the amount of money they needed for education by doing summer yobs i jobs is gone. the burden is just impacted students. there is no way they can work their way through college at 54 hours or 60 hours a week and be able to do their academic work. so entrepreneurial activity among 20- t 20-to-34-year-olds - people are student loan debt are lase likely to buy house than those without. if you think about it, if this is what a generation of americans are going to be faced with for the next decade or two, then that's going to have a ripple effect through our economy for several years. a recent study by the brookings institute found that student loan borrowers are 60% to 70% less likely to apply for graduate school than those without student debt.

so, again, now we have another complexity. madam president, i look at this issue and i look at the fact that we have a worldwide demand for 35,000 new airplanes. we need 20,000 new workers in the aerospace industry. we have demands for computer scientists, something like 300,000 a year. we only graduate 70,000. i look at it and say, why aren't we helping to finance everybody who wants to get an engineering and computer science degree? why aren't we trying to figure out a way to make that more affordable? that's exactly what we need to do, make an investment in education. but we can't make an investment in education on the backs of thee students when they're coming out of college with this much debt or trying to struggle even to learn these careers that are so vital to our economy, and they have to choose between working and actually studying. we'd rather they commit themselves to these careers and these educations so we can have the workforce of the future. now, i know some of my colleagues on the other side of

the aisle didn't support this legislation, but the congressional budget office projects that the bill would actually reduce the deficit by about $14 billion over the next decade. that's important because we want to see policies that are going to help our economy in the short-run, in the long-run, but they have to be fiscally responsible. society i want to make sure that those critics who say, oh, well if you make the interest rate lower that students are going to borrow more money ... i don't think that students are looking to borrow more to add to their debt. i don't think students that i talk to had loans as high as $108,000 want to borrow more money just because you are going to reduce the interest rate. they wnts to refinance, reduce their obligation and get back to studying. so, there's much more that we need to do to mitigate the costs of higher education. and i know my colleagues and i are going to be working on that. but the bank on the student loan emergency relief act was a very good step to help students and

to focus them on their careers and their education. so again, i hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will look again at this issue and get back to it. we need to make sure that college education is more affordable. it's time for us to extend the same benefits that we do for businesses and mortgages to students, so that they can refinance and that 25 million students in america could refinance their student loans. so i thank senator warren for bringing this issue up, and i hope we will get back to it again. madam president, i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: ms. cantwell: madam president,

i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: i ask unanimous consent that the time in a quorum be equally divided between both sides. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: and i ask now for the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call bs dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: i rise today to speak on a matter of great importance that seems to have slipped through the cracks of the public's consciousness. however, with growing furor over the recent scandal at the veterans administration, i expect that more and more people will become aware of it. i didn't think it was unreasonable to argue that most americans would be outraged to learn that the federal government pays tens of millions

of dollars every year to pay hundreds, if not thowrks of government employees -- if not thousands, of government employees into the work. this used to be called featherbedding. it originally referred to any person who is pampered, coddled or excessively rewarded. it was later used to describe certain labor relations practices. according to wikipedia, -- quote -- "the modern use of the term in the labor relations setting began in the united states railroad industry which used feathered mattresses in sleeping cars. railway labor unions confronted with technology which led to widespread unemployment sought to preserve jobs by negotiating contracts which required employers to compensate workers to do little or no work or which required complex and time-consuming work rules so as to generate a full day's work for an employee who otherwise would not -- otherwise would not remain employed" -- unquote.

congress tried to put an end to the practice in the 1947 taft-hartley act amendments which define and outlaw featherbedding. however, the u.s. supreme court has narrowly defined the terminology leaving most practices undisturbed. the featherbedding-like practice i'm referring to today is most often called -- quote -- "official time" -- unquote written government employees who are highly compensated often including overtime pay are paid to perform work for the government only work for the benefit of their unions. these -- quote -- "employees" -- unquote are not union employees nor are they paid by the union. instead, they are union members paid by the taxpayers to work full time for the union while working for the federal government. of course, this practice also goes on in the private sector.

however, in the private sector, the featherbedding comes off of the bottom line and is negotiated as a measure of ensuring labor peace and in exchange for other union concessions. in the federal government where the bottom line is the taxpayer, and where unions are not permitted to strike, this practice is a way for weaks managers to use government funds to reward private-sector union supporters and contributors passing the cost on to the unknowing taxpayer for services not rendered. in the pierk official -- private sector, time is controlled, in the federal sector, managers look the other way. according to o.p.m., unions

represented 1,202,733 nonpostal bargaining unit employees, an increase of more than 17,000 employees compared to fiscal year 2010. in that same year agencies responded that bargaining unit employees spent nearly 3.4 million hours on official time, an increase of nearly 10% compared to the previous year. how much money are we talking about? and why should american taxpayers shoulder the entire burden if the official time is only for union work? madam president, you may be wondering what this has to do with the v.a. scandal. well, i don't think it's a coincidence that the v.a. which is plagued by incompetence, dishonesty, and bureaucratic ineptitude utilizes the practice of official time more than any other federal agency, according

to o.p.m. in 2011 the v.a. reported paying out million a million hours in official time, an increase of more than 23% over the previous year. the cost of official time in 2011 amounted to nearly $43 million. that's $43 million paid out to v.a. -- quote -- "employees" -- unquote to do union work full time. as "wall street journal" editorial board writer kimberly strasle noted a few weeks back -- quote -- "the v.a. boasts one of the largest federal workers force and secretary eric shinseki bragged in 2010 that two-thirds is unionized. that's a whopping 200,000 union members representing by the service employees international union" -- unquote. madam president, i ask

unanimous consent "the wall street journal" editorial that i just mentioned -- referenced be placed in the record at this point immediately following my remarks. i ask unanimous consent that be placed immediately following my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: union supporters often lament under federal law, federal employee unions are relatively toothless especially when compared to the very powerful state employee unions. however, as ms. strasle noted given size and influence the v.a. union may be an exception to that rule. once again, two-thirds of the v.a. work force is unionized and the agency has paid ought more than $40 million in salaries to full-time union workers in a single hear year. that has -- single year. that has to have an impact on the v.a.'s efficiency.

and that's for workers that don't do any work except for the union. obviously, the inefficiency of the v.a. has recently been the subject of a very high profile public debate. however, the impact unions have had on the v.a.'s operation was being talked about well before news of the recent scandal broke. for example, senators portman and coburn sent a letter to former v.a. secretary shinseki in 2013 noting that the vast majority of v.a. employees on official time were trained nurses, instrument technicians, pharmacists, dental asince or therapists. they were specifically hired to fill roles in support of veterans. instead of caring for veterans, processing claims and helping to eliminate the horrendous backlog, these employees were being paid to do union work full time, all at the expense of

taxpayers. on top of that union negotiated work rules over things like seniority and job classification have contributed to the bureaucratic nightmare at the v.a. in addition the unions have been the most vocal opponents of my reform proposals that would give veterans access to outside health care. so while it may be overstating the unions' influence to assign to them the blame for the entire v.a. scandal, it is clear that these unions have at least contributed to the problems we're now seeing at the agency. they are at least partially to blame for the backlog in veterans' claims. they are at least partially to blame for the failed v.a. bureaucracies. and they are at least partially to blame for the failure of reasonable attempts to reform the agency in the past. and it's almost impossible to reform it the way it's currently run. now, madam president, i wish i could say that this problem is isolated at the v.a.

unfortunately, there's at least one other scandal-plagued agency with a similar union problem. i'm talking, of course, about the i.r.s. we're all pretty family with the i.r.s. targeting scandal. by its own admission, the agency was targeting tea party groups in the runup to the elections in both 2010 and 2012. and like the v.a., the i.r.s. consistents -- consist of a heavily unionized work force. 66% belongs to the national treasury union, or n tench * teu. the nteu is extremely active in politics, having twice endorsed president obama. during the 2010 election cycle when the i.r.s. first began targeting conservative groups if the nteu raised over $600,000

through its pac, lamb almost all of which went, lrnlings all of which went to democrats. in 2012 the nteu pac raised more than $700,000, 94% of which went to democrats. in other words, madam president, during the same campaign cycles in which the i.r.s. was targeting conservative organizations, organizations that were critical of the president, his administration and in many cases the i.r.s. itself, for harassment and extra scrutiny, the union that represents nearly two-thirds of i.r.s. employees was busy raising and donating well over a million dollars to democratic candidates. and you wonder why the partisanship at the i.r.s. which should not be partisan in any way, shape, or form. but it's filled with this partisanship stuff. and we should not have unions at the i.r.s. or at the v.a. is it any surprise that the agency found itself predisposed

toward harming conservative organizations or their causes? and, of course, the i.r.s. has its own issues with the practice of paying out official time. indeed, as of 2011 there were at least 200 i.r.s. employees working full time for their union, all at taxpayers' expense. in that same year the agency paid out more than 625,000 hours of official time. the total cost of these union activities to the taxpayers was roughly around $27 million, but that's only the beginning. that's $27 million in a single year paid out to -- quote -- "employees" -- unquote of the the federal government who did nothing but union work. that's simply preposterous, madam president, and like i said if the american people understood this type of freeing of the taxpayers goes on every day, they'd be outraged. current law allows most federal employees to be represented by a

union. there are, however, some exceptions. and good reasons for these exceptions. most of these exceptions are for agencies that perform a national security function or a highly sensitive work. you would think the i.r.s. would fit in that category. you would think that the v.a. administration would fit in that category. for example, we don't allow employees at the f.b.i., the c.i.a., or the secret service to be unionized. good reason for that. we don't need partisan political activities in those agencies. but we don't need them in the i.r.s. or the veterans administration either. we also don't allow employees at the g.a.o. or the federal labor relations authority to unionize. in days to come, congress is going to have to take a hard look at reforming both the veterans administration and the i.r.s. one of the questions we're going to have to ask ourselves is

whether these agencies with their important and sensitive missions and their poor performance in the recent past should be added to the list of agencies not permitted to unionize. not permitted to be partisan. anybody that doesn't understand that doesn't understand anything about politics. in addition as we continually look for ways to improve the efficiency of our government, we need to examine the overall practice of official time and determine whether it should be eliminated entirely. i for one don't believe that taxpayers ought to be footing the bill for union work. i think that the majority of the american people have given an opportunity to fully understand this practice and the abuse it entails would agree with me. one thing is for sure, madam president -- if what we've seen at the v.a. and the i.r.s. is in any way representative of the influence unions have on government agencies, drastic changes are going to be necessary.

madam president, how can any american citizen feel that the i.r.s. is above politics when it's run by a union? and we all know that the unions support almost 100% one party over the other. how can we feel that the v.a. is going to be handled right when it has a union representing it and determining all the work rules? do you know how difficult it is, i talked to the i.r.s. commissioner, commissioners, since i've been on the finance committee, and they admit that to try and correct or punish an i.r.s. employee that is out of control and not doing what's right, it takes upward of a

year, if you're lucky. and that's why -- that's why there's all kinds of politics in these agencies and they act with impunity in advancing what really are liberal causes. if there are any two agencies that should not have unions in them, one ought to be the i.r.s., the other ought to be the v.a. administration. now, i was raised in the union movement. i learned a trade. i went through a formal apprenticeship program. i became a journey man, and i'm proud of that and i believe that unions have a place in our society. but they have become more and more partisan. 40% of union members, it is reported, are republicans. and yet almost 100% of every

dime that's given in politics is given to democrats. so by any measure you've got to say that these folks are partisan, which i think is their right, but should we have partisan control of agencies like the i.r.s. that everybody has to deal with at one time or another in their lives, and the veterans administration, which is in dire jeopardy right now because of the way it's being run. i've been very much trying to do a straightforward investigation of the i.r.s. with all of these acuizations which have been thrown at the -- accusations which have been thrown at the iraq, many of which are true. the more i get into it the more i realize it is being run in a partisan way by one party, when

it should be run in a nonpartisan way for neither party. i decided to help do something about it and help the american people pay attention to this. i think most people, including union members, would be outraged to know that there's partisanship at these agencies that is not just average partisanship; it's blatant partisanship. and the more i get into it the more i realize that that's true. with that, i suggest -- i yield the floor. mr. coats: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: madam president, last week our nation commemorated the 70's anniversary of d-day. leo sheer of huntington county, indiana, is one of those

courageous veterans who survived the assault on the beaches of normandy and last month he made thedjourthe journey to washingt, with the honor flight network to receive a hero's welcome from a grateful nation. my office had the honor of greeting leo and his group of heroes whe upon their arrival ae world war ii memorial. and leo made an unforgettable impression with his humility and strength of characteristic. leo is a member of what we now call "the greatest generation," and i think he easily deserves that title, where duty comes as second-nature. where braggadocio is not present, where simply standing up and serving your country in a time of crisis is responded to overwhelmingly without complaint and with true honor and dignity.

sadly, there are a dwindling number of those not only who arrived at the shores on d-day in normandy but those who served throughout the world's largest military conflict in history. while those brave servicemen and women are still here to share their stories, at least a few, we must remember the sacred promise that we, as a nation, made to them, and that was to give them the care they deserve when they come back home. as a veteran myself, my hope is that our nation will carry out this promise, not only to our world war ii vets but to all who have served in conflicts from that point forward -- from korea to vietnam to iraq to afghanistan and other places. we must live up to the promise for all who served and study ready to answer the call and answered that call.

regrettably, in recent months we've seen this promise broken and shattered. just this week an internal audit by the department of veterans affairsvealed that the department's prones -- revealed that the department's problems have affected 76% of v.a. facilities. nearly 100,000 virnt00,000 vetee to wait for appointments. in my home state of indiana, confirmed audit findings show that veterans endured unacceptably long wait times. some hoosier veterans never even received an appointment. this is unacceptable. that is why today i stand here in support of the bipartisan sanders-mccain veterans bill that would implement key changes to the existing v.a. health care system. this is not a perfect bill, and there are some parts of it that i wish were different. i hope that we can manage some

needed changes, as this moves over to the house of representatives and then to conference, goes through the process here, and we'll be back here vote on the final bill that will do our veterans proud and begin the reformed -- the process of reform that the v.a. so desperately needs. let me address three key reforms in this legislation, however, that i think are essential to our moving forward, and the primary reason why i have agreed to support this. first, giving veterans more choices in care. perhaps the most important provision in this legislation is allowing veterans that cannot be scheduled within a reasonable time the -- giving them the option to receive care from nonhcnon-v.a. facilities or private-sector facilities outside of the v.a. this also applies to veterans that reside more than 40 miles

wrai froaway from a v.a. faciliy of them not in a condition to be able to secure the transportation that they need for that care, and so they don't have to endure long drives to get there. we must ensure that erns veteras receive timely care and if the v.a. cannot provide it, then our veterans should be free to go elsewhere, including medicare providers. and second, the removal of bad actors here. there are a lot of good people working at the v.a. their hearts are in the right place. they're talented, they provide good conveyor, good service. i don't -- they provide good care, good service. i don't mean to demean their contributions to veterans' health care. but we do know that there have been mistakes. there's been mismanagement and some outright fraud, as it appears. we'll have to prosecute that. so this reform would allow the secretary of the v.a. to authorize -- give them the

authority to demote or fire senior executive service implies based on their performance. that is not present now. and if we're going to change the management, it takes more than just asking the first -- the top person to resign, as has happened. we need to locke look at the management team and those that oversee those providing the care and what is their responsibility and their role. passage here would shake up and shape the leadership of the v.a. so that we can be -- those people can be held accoun accoue for their actions. the third provision i want to mention is providing more v.a. locations. it's clear that some of our veterans have to travel very long distances. and also it's clear that the facilities currently in place are short of help and not enough to address the needs of the many veterans that are entering the system. and so this bill would establish 26 new v.a. medical facilities around the country.

as i said, while this legislation is not perfect, it is an important start, but it should not and will not be the end of our work to live up to our promises to veterans. ultimately, as i've stated before from the floor here and to our body of senators, the v.a. needs a change of culture. too many bureaucrats view our veterans as a list of numbers rather than the heroes worthy of our very best care. we have to look at our veterans through a different lens, ones that see them clearly as defenders of our freedom and ones that see them as the heroes that they are. we must continue to investigate the culture within the v.a. that allowed this to happen and make sure it doesn't happen again. that's why i've exawl called fon independent investigation. this bill authorizes the beginning of this process of independent investigations. also, the appropriations

committee has provided additional funding to specifically allow the inspector general to conduct an independent investigation into the v.a. and i've joined with many of my colleagues to ask the department of justice to join this investigation. now, unfortunately, this culture of indifference at the v.a. is not new. for years veterans have faced excessively long waits for disability claims. when i returned to the senate in 2011, these waits were over 600 days in our capital city of indiana, indianapolis. nearly two years to have their claims adjudicated. once we signinged the light on the problem, the -- once we shined the light on the problem, the situation improved a little bit. but waits are still far too long. my staff in indianapolis currently has over 550 active cases that we are working on for

hoosier veterans who are seeking help and getting results from the v.a. but have not gotten satisfactory responses. and so they call us and say, can you help? and we do everything that we can to help and expedite the process. in many cases, these veterans are just trying to assess the benefits they've rightfully earned. they just want an answer. reflectingreflecting on leo shes service to our nation on d-day pleende--d-day, reminded me of e opportunity i had. it was a powerful and extremely emotional experience. standing on the bluffs overlooking the spread of beaches from utah to omaha to point du hoc to others made me reflect on the countless lives

lost in service to our nation. you know, i was standing there on a perfectly calm day, the water was gently lapping on the shore -- lapping up the shore, the beaches were empty. ithere was a soft, warm breeze blowing. the sun was shining. just a beautiful day. and i was overwhelmed by the violence that must have taken place. that i could only imagine -- and we've all seen the movie "saving private ryan" and i give mr. spielberg great credit for making that a very realistic picture of what happened. i don't think hollywood could -- or any of us, if we weren't there, could imagine the violence that taking place on that calm beach on that day when our troops went ashore. the silence was not there.

there must have been a cacophony of noise. hundreds of ships offshore unloading our soldiers into landing vehicles, many of them shot down -- the gea german buns up in the bluffs, built-up accommodations, an almost impossible task. many of them never got out of their landing craft. when the doors opened, many were shot before they reached the water. the waves, the water was red, the blood that our soldiers were sacrificing that never made it to the beach. the beach was littered with bodies of those who never canadian to the edge of the cliff. -- who never canadian to the edge of the cliff. the sacrifice that was made in getting to the german bunkers took many, many hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.

and so visiting the graves of soldiers afterward, pausing to say a prayer for gratitude for their sacrifice leads us to this point where we have to understand what it is we're trying to provide and why we need to provide it. and that is a response to those who put their lives on the line and many sacrificed thois -- those lives. many ended up with lifelong disabilities. a commitment to those that we would take care of those when they came back. they've come back to run into a government-run bureaucracy run amok. if it approves anything, i think ididshall if it proves anythingi think it proves that government doesn't do anything well, without duplication, without excessive cost. it is not effective, it is not efficient. nowhere near what the private sector can offer. that's why i think it provision that veterans who can't get the care they need in a timely basis

have the opportunity to use our private system. but they deserve our utmost care. they served on the front line, but when they go for benefit decisions and when they go for health care, they're not at the front of the line, they're at the back of the line. and that's not right. so we can't let the sunset today. and i'm glad that we are not. because we're voting at 4:00 to move this legislation forward and in doing so, we're going to make a statement that we're going to try to live up to that promise and do the best that we possibly can. as i said, this is the beginning. pass a vernghtas a vent, veteray country to fulfill my promises. i will seek to hold the veterans administration accountable and to do everything i can to help with the reform of the system. that reform is so desperately needed. the then-leader of that effort,

general divide d eisenhower called the operation at normandy a fight -- and i quote here "in which we will accept nothing less than full victory." andnesand it is in that spirit i call upon my senate colleagues to immediately take up and pass this legislation on behalf of our veterans. and then to continue the work of changing the culture of the v.a. so that we don't have to come back here years from now and repeat this process all over again. let's get it right this time. the fight to restore trust to our veterans is one worth waging. and to paraphrase general eisenhower, we should accept nothing less than victory. mr. president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: will the senator withhold his request? mr. coats: i'm sorry? i will withhold that. yes, i didn't see my colleague on the floor. i'm sorry.

he's a tall texan, distinguished stature and i don't know how i possibly missed him. mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i thank my friend from indiana for his remarks about our military service men and women and our obligations to provide them the care that they've earned by their service. i'm looking forward to voting along with everyone in this chamber on this bipartisan legislation this afternoon which represents the first step -- not the last step -- the first step toward addressing the systemic failures that have been disclosed as a result of the comprehensive v.a. audit. but before then, i want to speak again about a growing humanitarian crisis in south texas, the state i represent, where authorities are struggling with waves of unaccompanied minors, children, coming through mexico into the united states.

the numbers are pretty staggering. 47,000 have been detained at the southwestern border since october, and the department of homeland security and border patrol estimate it could be as many as 60,000 unaccompanied minors mostly from central america, which means, if you look at the map from guatamala city to mcallen texas, it's roughly 1,200 miles. unfortunately, this influx is a direct consequence of the perception that this administration will not enforce our immigration laws. interviews with more than 200 of the migrants who comprise some of these individuals confirms their impression reinforced by central american news media outlets, primarily newspapers, that if children can get to the united states, they have a free ticket and will be able to stay.

we had the chance to question and to discuss this humanitarian crisis with secretary johnson, the secretary of homeland security this, morning before the judiciary committee. and to his credit, he has taken an all-hands-on-deck attitude. but the truth of the matter is that the federal government's resources are overwhelmed, overwhelmed by this humanitarian crisis. by creating a a powerful incentive for people to come to the united states illegally, we have effectively encouraged children and their parents to make a treacherous, threatening journey from central america, one of the most dangerous parts of the world today, through mexico, which is large swathes of mexico are controlled by drug cartels, and then all the way into texas. secretary johnson conceded this morning that somehow we've, we're schizophrenic when we look

at the victims of human trafficking and other people that we all agree that we need to do more on a bipartisan basis to deal with this scourge of human trafficking. but the fact of the matter is now, because of the organized, the transnational criminal organizations that traffic in people for economic reasons, for sex, they traffic in drugs, they traffic in weapons, they'll do anything for money. they're criminals. that's what they do. and unfortunately, we have a lot of innocent children who are now being swept up in this humanitarian crisis, as i say, committed by their parents to take this trek across mexico into the united states, and we have no idea how many start that journey, mr. president, and how many simply drop off along the way because they have been kidnapped, injured, murdered, or perhaps they just become ill as a result of exposure and die in this long trek. but it's a journey that often

begins at cities, towns, and villages scattered throughout honduras, guatamala and el salvador. the first major check point is the mexican border with guatamala, it is about 500 miles long. before passing there, they pass a region occupied by the zetas cartel, one of the most violent in the world. when they reach mexico, many illegal immigrants jump on to freight trains known by the ominous nickname of "the beast." anyone listening to me, i would encourage them to go online and to google or bing or use some other search engine to type in "the beast" reasoned some of --d some of the horrific stories about transport from southern mexico up to northern mexico on the beast. npr, national public radio,

reported the beast train is -- quote -- "just as likely to spit them out as it is to shepherd them safely to the border. indeed, people riding on the beast are frequently robbed, raped, or killed by the drug traffickers and gang members who control the smuggling corridors. this is organized criminal activity by transnational criminal organizations. as one former beast passenger told cnn -- quote -- "almost everyone gets assaulted. almost everyone gets assaulted." so if there's any of us who think that illegal immigration and trafficking involves some sort of benign experience of traveling from a country where you don't have opportunity to a country where you do have opportunity, well, that part's true. but what they don't tell you is

the horrific, life-threatening, sometimes life-destroying experience of getting to the united states because you're committing yourself to the tender mercies of some of the most violent criminal organizations on the planet. in recent years mexican authorities have discovered mass graves containing the bodies of central american migrants, those who did not make it to our southern border. among those who aren't murdered by the cartels, many passengers on the beast simply fall off the train. they try to jump on it while it's moving, for example. if they're lucky, they might just end up with a few broken bones. but if they're not lucky, they might end up losing a limb or being crushed to death underneath its wheels. in short, no one should be traveling to the united states this way, and least of all, young children, some of whom according to published newspaper

reports are as young as three and five years old. can any parent comprehend the idea of a three-year-old or five-year-old coming unaccompanied or perhaps en masse with drug cartels and criminal organizations transporting them from their home country to the united states? i mean, the border patrol reported that 180, 180 convicted sex offenders have been arrested since october coming across the southwestern border. can you imagine this trip with convicted section offenders mixed into the mass of humanity coming across the border? some children who ride the beast were kidnapped or forced to become drug mules or into sexual slavery. in fact, some even, who make it all the way to texas and north remain prisoners of organized crime after crossing the u.s.

border. i remember talking to one young woman about a year ago. i had the chance to visit with her. she came from central america. she was brought by a coyote, a human smuggler, into houston, texas. she had family up in new jersey, but that didn't work out. so she came back to houston where she was essentially held in indentured servitude and prostituted and forced to turn over the proceeds of that money to her, to her, to the coyote, to the smuggler. when you operate in the shadows of the law, you have no protection of the law. and the people who are the most lickly to get hurt -- most likely to get hurt are the immigrants themselves or certainly the immigrant community. we need to keep that in mind, mr. president. we have to remember that mexico's biggest, most violent drug cartels are heavily involved in this trafficking, as i mentioned earlier.

"time" magazine reported last year -- quote -- "cartels control most of mexico's struggling networks through which victims are moved." while they also take money from pimps and brothels operating in their territories. the cartels, gangs and sex traffickers are only too happen to prey on the poor, vulnerable, migrants, including children transiting through their terrain. experts believe the mexican drug cartels must earn as much as $10 billion a year from sex trafficking and sex slavery alone. these are not nice people. according to amnesty international, some human rights organizations and academics estimate as many as six in ten women and a third -- and a quarter of these unaccompanied minors are girls. but amnesty international says

some human rights organizations and academics estimate as many as six in ten women experience sexual violence during their journey through mexico. six out of ten. a new c.r.s. congressional research memo reports that based on apprehension data provided by customs and border protection, there has been an increase in the number of unaccompanied alien children who are girls and the number of unaccompanied alien children who are under the age of 13. not exactly able to defend themselves against the monstrosities that they encounter along the way. mr. president, i hope that it's clear to everyone listening and to the president and every other person of goodwill, that we should be doing everything possible to discourage people from risking their lives in the first place, and especially their children's lives on such a

dangerous journey. before i came to the senate, i happened to be attorney general of texas. and before that, a career in law and the judiciary. and it's standard criminal jurisprudence that not only should law enforcement enforce the laws in order to maintain the law; that the law serves another important function, and that is deterrence. in other words, it stops people from doing things they know they shouldn't do in the first place rather than just catching them after they do it. this is one of the elements that's missing and unfortunately was encouraged by the impression that you got a free ticket. if all toud do was get -- if all you had to do was get on the train and show up in south texas. so this is very dangerous stuff, as i've said. and it really has backfired in unexpected ways. yesterday i listed five simple

steps that i, suggestions really that i made to the president that he could take to start fixing the problem. ii was glad to hear secretary johnson talk about some of the ad hoc measures he's been to implement, but the truth is they're struggling to catch up. but i urge the president, number one, to publicly declare that his 2012 deferred action program will not apply to children currently arriving at the border. let me just stop there to say, mr. president, some of my colleagues on the judiciary committee couldn't resist the temptation to take a partisan shot. they said, well, you know if the house just passed immigration reform, this would have never happened. my point is the president's deferred action program doesn't even apply to these children. so it's still against the law for them to enter. but they realize as a practical matter, overwhelming the resources and capacity of the federal government, that there is no way we can turn them back.

and they'll have to be handled compassionately and in a humane sort of way. but it would help if, number one, the president would make clear that he has not issued a free ticket to anyone who wants to enter the country illegally. secondly, i encouraged him to publicly discourage people from attempting the journey through mexico. and it would help if our mexican counterparts would do a better job, maybe with our help and assistance, of securing their southern border, since that would stop a lot of people coming from central america through mexico on this dangerous journey which i tried to describe. i also encouraged the president to enforce all of our immigration laws, regardless of political needs, or any frustration he might feel or anyone else might feel on the current stalemate that we find ourselves in. sometimes these things take a little time. and my hope is if not before, by next year that congress, the senate and the house, could begin to move a series of

smaller pieces of legislation that are more transparent, that are consensus-based, and to begin to repair the broken immigration system. i don't know anybody who believes, on the right or the left, that the status quo is acceptable. and indeed it's dangerous to the people i've described. so i mentioned the fourth item, which is to work with the mexican government to improve security at the border with guatemala. i was recently in juarez, mexico, right off the river from el paso which used to be one of the most dangerous places on the planet because of all the conflict between the drug cartels. things are getting better. it's still pretty rough, but things are getting better, thanks to strong leaders like the mayor who i met with there and thanks to the assistance of the united states government providing through an initiative to help train law enforcement to provide equipment and the like. so we could step up our work with the mexican government to help them secure their own

southern border which would eliminate more than half of this migration from central america. and finally, i urge the president to take the step of making sure that texas and other u.s. border states and communities have the resources they need to address the ongoing crisis. today, i reiterate those calls, and i also call on the president please act as soon as possible. make no mistake, the actions we take and sometimes the actions we don't take have unintended consequences, but in the days and weeks ahead, they will have life-or-death consequences to untold number of vulnerable children who will perhaps in the misperception that they can stay -- come to the united states if they can just get here, and which makes -- without understanding the treacherous journey that will befall them, we are doing no one a service.

but because the impression created by the president has resulted in this problem, at least in substantial part, i believe he has unique authority and power to begin to fix it. but first, he will have to send the message that i mentioned a moment ago that there is no free ticket into the united states, then we have got to deal with the humanitarian crisis of these children to make sure they are safe, but then we need to get about the business of enforcing our laws and not just giving the impression that anybody and everybody who wants to come to the united states can come here. it would be perhaps in a perfect world, everybody could live in america, but the fact of the matter is we need to have our immigration laws for our protection, for the protection of legal immigrants, and we need to do everything we can to send the message that we are a caring country but we are also a country that believes in the rule of law and that we need to restore order out of this chaos while dealing with this

immediate crisis of this humanitarian wave of children that is overwhelming the capability of the federal government to deal with it. we need to do everything we can together to address all of these. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: the senator from texas just spoke on the floor here about the number of children coming across the border into the united states, and the numbers are frightening, they are so large, and we had a hearing today with jay johnson who is the secretary of the department of homeland security, and a lot of questions were asked if actions by our government or statements by our president are luring these children into the united states. let me make the record clear -- there is nothing, nothing about the president's executive order involving those we call

dreamers, children brought to the united states which would leave any of these families with children to believe that they could qualify to be treated as qualified for dacha, that is deferred deportation because they would be eligible dreamers. none, none of these children would be eligible, period. so the suggestion that this executive order has anything to do with luring these children to the united states is wrong. second, there is turmoil in mexico and central america. that is a fact. i'm sure that that is a factor in decisions being made by some to leave, but there is something that has been overlooked here time and again which needs to be said. there is a pulitzer prize-winning book entitled "enrique's journey." the author is an "l.a. times" writer named sonia nastacio. she started following the paths

of children, children coming into the united states from mexico and central america, and even south america. here's what she found after her investigation. 48,000 children a year coming across the border into the united states, some as young as 7 years old. half of them without any escort. how do they get in? well, many of them jump on freight trains. can you imagine, 7, 8, 9, 10-year-old jumping on a freight train to come into the united states, trying to get here by themselves, half of them by themselves? why? 75% gave the same reason. to find my mother. to find my father. that's what's bringing so many

of them into the united states. what happened? mother left that village in mexico or somewhere in central america and came to the united states. she works hard now and sends money home and occasionally will send toys at birthdays and christmas and exchange photographs and heartbroken children get on these trains and try to find them. they found a 9-year-old boy walking around los angeles, asked him why, where he was going. he said where is san francisco? he was trying to find his mother. that is the reality and the heartbreak of what is happening at our border when it comes to children so many times over. the lucky ones make it. many don't. a survey done by the university of houston found over and over again these kids on their way are starving, they are beaten, they are robbed, they are raped

over and over again. some are pushed under the train, some die, some are maimed. that is the reality. and what does it tell us? as we step back and look at this, what does it tell us? it tells us what we already know. our immigration system in america is broken. it is flat-out broken. i know this and everyone else does, too. 12 million people living amongst us, some of whom have been here for decades, worried about being deported tomorrow. with a household where the wife and mother may be a citizen, that children may all be citizens, but one person in the household is not. that is our broken immigration system. well, congress stopped talking about it. do something about it. mr. president, we did, we did and you were here. it was a little over a year ago, we put together a bipartisan coalition of senators, four democrats, four republicans, i was one of them, and we sat down

and worked out for months a comprehensive immigration reform to finally fix this broken immigration system and start to end some of the tragedies that we know are happening to children, to their parents all across america. we worked on it for months, and it was a pretty interesting coalition. it included john mccain, a well-known republican senator from arizona, lindsey graham, republican senator from south carolina, marco rubio, republican senator from florida, jeff flake, republican senator from arizona. on our side, chuck schumer of new york, bob menendez of new jersey, michael bennet of colorado and myself. and we worked on it for months and we produced a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was endorsed by virtually every major labor organization and the u.s. chamber of commerce, and you go through the list of

virtually every religion in america, major religion endorsed it. it was an amazing bipartisan product, and i was proud to be part of it and prouder even more when the day came that we passed it on the floor of the united states senate with 68 votes. republicans, democrats, we did it. what happened to it? we sent it to the u.s. house of representatives where it has languished for over a year, for over a year they refuseed to call this bill. now, senators who come to the floor, who voted against the reform and who don't acknowledge the obvious that the republican house will not even call this bill for debate and a vote and just want to come here and criticize the current immigration system in america aren't telling you the whole story. the whole story is we need to fix this system top to bottom. yes, a path to citizenship, but

a path to citizenship which eliminates those with serious criminal records, we don't want them, makes those who want to enter this path pay a fine and learn english and make them learn english and make sure as well that they are paying their taxes to our country. then we'll put them on a path to citizenship where they can be at the back of the line. under our bill, it would take a person 13 years before they became a citizen. all that time, they are paying their fines, they are learning english, they are doing what they are supposed to do and subject to regular questioning as to any problems that might be in their lives we should know about. that's what the bill does. so when i hear people come to the floor and say, you know, this immigration system is sure broken, i agree completely. it's a tragedy to think thousands of children are crossing the border in search of their parents as young as 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, teenagers being

preyed upon. i just had in my office the ambassador of ecuador to the united states of america, and we talked about this issue, and she told me the story of a 12-year-old girl whose mother and father were in new york and this heartbroken girl decided she had to at any cost be reunited with them, and she jumped on one of those trains and she was apprehended by mexican authorities. her parents found out about it, tried to find her. they put her in an orphanage. she was going through the mexican legal system. the next thing it was announced that this 12-year-old girl had committed suicide. questionable but still a tragedy. and this ambassador from ecuador said i can't tell what you that did to our country. it broke our hearts to think that little girl was just trying to find her mom and dad. we can do better. we can be better. and all the excuses in the world don't count when it comes to

this issue because we are a nation of immigrants, my friends, all of us. you may have to go back several generations. in my case, not very far. my mother was an immigrant to this country. i'm lucky, standing on the floor of the united states senate, representing a great state like illinois. that's my story. that's my family's story. that's america's story. that's who we all are. why can't we in our generation embrace the reality of immigration, fix this broken system, make sure that we have security on the border to stop as much as we physically can the flow of illegal immigration and to make sure that those that are here are reporting to our government so we know who they are, where they are, where they work. all these things will make us a better and stronger mitigation. let me tell you something else about all these immigrant folks, and i speak with some authority. the first wave of immigrants in this country by and large take

the toughest, hardest jobs available, anything, and they will work hard on those jobs, but they are also looking over their shoulder at their kids and they are saying to their kids we expect more from you. we want you to stay in school. we want you to succeed. that dynamic, of the hardworking immigrant and the first generation american striving to prove that they can succeed gives our country the energy that it needs. it gives our economy the energy that it needs. i see my friend came to the floor here, senator mccain, and i mentioned his name earlier in a positive way because we worked together so closely on immigration reform, and he has a special challenge i don't have. yes, we have many undocumented in illinois, but being a border state, arizona has tougher challenges than most. we tried in our bill to be sensitive to both states and all states in what we were putting

together. so i wanted to come to the floor and say a word about children coming across the border. i see two of my colleagues are here and i will yield the floor in just a second and say this -- we need to acknowledge the obvious. these children are vulnerable. they are being exploited. many of them are being hurt. some of them are being raped, others are being killed, and that's got to come to an end. but to bring it to an end in a sensible, thoughtful american way, we ought to pass comprehensive immigration reform. no more excuses in the u.s. house of representatives. call the bill. for goodness sake, call the bill. debate it, vote on it. i'll accept whatever comes, but what i won't accept is ignoring these problems, blaming them on someone else and putting off to sometime in the future the reality of the responsibility we should face today. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. boozman: i ask permission to speak for five minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. boo.: as a son of an air force master sergeant and a member of the senate committee on veterans' affairs, i take very seriously my responsibility to represent the interest of those who have served our country in uniform. when it comes to our nation's veterans, their commitment to country is without question and our country's commitment to them should be the same. put simply, our veterans deserve better. that is why i'm pleased to see that we have come together to address this crisis in the senate. these men and women have served and sacrificed on our behalf as a grateful nation. we need to ensure that they are getting the high-quality services they've earned. our veterans deserve a system that proves their care is the top of our priority. unfortunately, the v.a. is struggling to meet the health demands of our veterans.

the v.a. inspector general is currently investigating misconduct throughout the v.a. health system. in order to ensure accountability, we have to give the v.a. the ability to fire and demote senior executive service employees who are responsible for these types of abuses. mr. boozman: under current law, senior v.a. employees are nearly untouchable. that means the very people responsible for hiding the true extent of wait times and other abuses, for instance, can't be fired. that's incredible when you think about it. we cannot tolerate bad actors who abuse their power and put our veterans in danger. that's why a key component of this bill gives the secretary of veterans affairs the authority to fire or demote senior v.a. employees for poor performance. accountability is the goal here. however, that goes beyond individual employees. the department itself needs to be held accountable for its

shortcomings. so it's time we shine a light on the v.a. this bill would also establish an electronic waiting list that would be made available to veterans on the department's web site so everyone can see the average waiting time for an appointment at each v.a. medical center for specific types of care and services. new wait time goals would also be published on the department's web site and on the federal register within 90 days of the bill's enactment. earlier this week we saw an audit that revealed that the veterans seeking care for the first time waited on average of 60 days in the little rock v.a. hospital. and 52 days in the fayetteville hospital. clearly these results need to be improved and indicate the failure of the v.a. to meet its goal of seeing new patients within 14 days. i'm committed to ensuring that the v.a. uses every available option it has to deliver on its mission for all veterans who

have earned this care. and if it can't, this bill gives our veterans the ability to seek that care elsewhere. the bill we are considering today would establish a two-year program that allows veterans who have been unable to obtain care from the v.a. for providing service to seek care from private providers. this option would also be to provide those who live more than 40 miles from a v.a. facility, including a community-based outpatient clinic. the government would be obligated to reimburse the non-v.a. health provider for the services provided to the veteran. wait times and secret lists aren't the only problem within the v.a. health system. we are learning now that quality-of-care issues on a range of critical care outcomes, including mortality and infection rates are willingly being ignored by senior v.a. management. we need to restore the faith in the v.a. health system and that

begins with accountability and followthrough with our promises. the crisis surrounding the v.a. health care system shows an immediate need to improve timely access to medical care for our veterans. the v.a. needs to correct the systemic problems that are preventing our veterans from accessing the high-quality health care services offered. i'm pleased that we are taking action on this important issue and i encourage my colleagues to support this legislation before us because we need to improve the health services our veterans earn and deserve. the presiding officer: the chair welcomes the senator from arkansas back to the floor. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, i come to the floor today to say that this compromise is really an excellent example of what congress can do when we work

together to put our veterans first and work towards substantive solutions towards the challenges they face. passing this legislation this afternoon is a critical step towards addressing some of the immediate accountability and transparency concerns that are plaguing the v.a. and fixing its deep-seeded structural and cultural challenges. you know, each new report seems to paint a more serious and more disturbing picture of the v.a.'s systemwide failure to provide timely access to care for our nation's heroes. and i'm especially concerned by the number of facilities that serve washington state veterans that have been flagged for further review and investigation. mr. president, the v.a. has promised to get to the bottom of this and i expect them to do so immediately. however, these new reports are not only consistent with what i hear so often from veterans and v.a. employees but also with the inspector general and g.a.o.

have -- what the inspector general and g.a.o. have been reporting on now for more than a decade. mr. president, these are not new problems and congress must continue to take action on them while addressing the inevitable issues that will be uncovered as ongoing investigations and reviews are completed. i expect this chamber to come together, as the house did yesterday, twice, in fact, to move this bill forward. so we can work on our differences with the house and send this legislation to the president's desk as soon as possible. mr. president, as we all know, there are serious problems at the v.a. that will not be solved through legislation alone or by simply replacing the secretary. however, i am very hopeful that these steps that are in this legislation will spark long overdue change from the top down in order to ensure that our veterans are getting the care and support that they expect and they deserve. so, mr. president, i wanted to come today to commend the senator from arizona and the

senator from vermont for their commitment to bipartisanship and putting the needs of our veterans first. this is an important compromise and i urge our colleagues to continue the bipartisan collaboration that made this bill possible. let's get it passed and in place so these reforms can get started and then we must keep working to address the management, resource and personnel shortcomings that we all know exist at the v.a. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. vitter: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i stand in strong support of the veterans bill we're about to vote on as well and i want to commend everyone who worked on it, both sides of the aisle, certainly including senator mccain, who was here a minute ago, senator sanders who's on the floor, senator burr, who's the ranking republican member of the committee. i am strongly supporting it mostly with three key provisions in mind.

one i've been working on since well before this scandal and this crisis that's engulfed the v.a. broke and that is to dislodge, to get moving on crucial expanded v.a. outpatient clinics in 18 states around the country, including louisiana. 26 clinics. two of those are in louisiana, in lafayette and lake charles. those should have been built by now. they've been on the books, they've been in the v.a. plan for years through what the v.a. readily admits was a bureaucratic glitch, a complete screw-up at the v.a. they were delayed for a significant period of time. there was another glitch in terms of the so-called scoring of these clinics. that required legislation which the house passed, but that legislation, which i was spearheading in the senate, has been balled up in the senate. finally the corrective legislation to get moving, get

these clinics done, including in lafayette and lake charles, louisiana, is in this bill. so i've been committed to that for months, since well before this scandal erupted. the other two provisions i want to highlight in this bill do go directly to this scandal. one is the need to give veterans choice when they're locked into a dysfunctional system. and so for the first time ever, we're mandating unparalleled choice that if a veteran's either over 40 miles from a v.a. facility or he or she can't get care and appointments in a reasonable time frame, then that veteran can go to a medicare provider or another provider that's delineated in the bill to get the care he needs in a timely way. that is a really important reform to expand choice and

really competition that i think will make the v.a. system better and offer veterans, when need be, important care outside the strict v.a. system. the third provision i wanted to highlight is to give the leadership of the v.a. the tools it needs to clean house, to get rid of incompetence or, worse, to fire people who clearly merit that in the cases we've been reading about in the last several months. we have had so many protections heaped on the civil service system over 100-plus years that it's become virtually impossible to fire or demote or punish someone who is deserving of that because of incompetence or worse. we need to change that, because unless and until we do, bureaucracies like the v.a. will remain broken. and this bill has important provisions in that regard.

those are the three top reasons i'll be strongly supporting the bill. thank you, mr. president. [inaudible] mr. mccain: ...both sides. the presiding officer: the republican side has six minutes; the democrats, just under 13 minutes. mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent for the senator from alabama to have six minutes and i would allow -- ask unanimous consent for four additional minutes for this side following the senator from vermont. the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing none, so ordered. the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, i appreciate the work of my colleagues on this legislation. they've accomplished some very good things. we need legislation to pass to deal with our veterans. the needs are real and recent

revelations of substantial substandard care, and too often no care at all, at our v.a. medical centers are shocking. there is and has been a long-term problem with efficiency and management of that agency. it's heartbreaking to see some of the examples of it be highlighted today. it's really an embarrassment. we -- we owe our veterans better care than we've been giving. our national debt now is $17 trillion. it's growing rapidly. we can't be lighthearted or cavalier about our responsibility to agree and follow our agreement to honor budget limitations that we have. now, there are a lot of freedoms that we have and a lot of ability and duties we have to

set priorities in our spending. i think veterans clearly are a priority but what happens so often is that in the crush and press of business, we're unable to reach agreements on finding money somewhere else in this monstrous bureaucracy and government hours and we simply break the budget and add to the debt. that's what my concern is. i'm the ranking republican on the budget committee. we wrestle with these issues. the chairman of the committee, chairman murray, and the numbers from the congressional budget office indicate that this legislation, as drafted, violates the budget act. indeed, the entire bill, the way the language is written, has been declared an emergency.

so i think that's not the way we really ought to do this. i know there's a crush of time but we should not be declaring the whole bill an emergency. by my count, the legislation calls for as many as 9 to 35 reports to congress. are those emergencies? it creates two commissions. they're not emergencies. even more concerning i think is the new open-ended entitlement legislation in the -- in the bill. the bill would authorize emergency spending but set no limits on that spending. section 801 says -- quote -- "such sums as are necessary." well, how much is necessary? i'm just -- i feel strongly we've got to do the right thing for our veterans but i don't think we should create a blank

check, an unlimited entitlement program now. indeed, we need to resist the temptation to create more entitlements and more entitlements, which is one of the reasons that we're heading recklessly to a fiscal crisis as our own office of management -- the congressional budget office has recommendedment this is also three years of emergency spending under the legislation which i think is an unwise precedent for us to set. we should designate maybe if we have to do had this, 2014, this year, where the crisis is, we've already appropriated money, if we need some more, that could be perhaps justified as emergency spending. but a three-year bill goes beyond what i think is proper. the appropriations committee has already reported out the 2015

va-hud bill and it's already on the floor and could be here as early as next week. the senate could easily attach a bipartisan amendment to that that provides the spending for provided for this this bill, with offsets, cuts in other spending to pay for it. there are places we can do this. i got to tell you, there are some good things in the bill. i really think there are. it improves the situation. and i like the idea of giving veterans more choice to go to the doctor that's close to them. something senator mccain and senator sanders have agreed on. i think that's progress, very much so. but i have to say that i cannot suggest to my colleagues that the budget violation now before us should be waived. it should not. we should adhere to the

agreements we reached on spending and, unfortunately, the bill does not do that. finally, colleagues, a vote to sustain the budget point of order is a vote to tell the committee to find appropriate money for the bill and does not kill the bill, does not knock the bill down, and allows it to continue to be alive in a piece of legislation before us, it just would require us to fix the funding. so that's what we really should be doing, and that's why i feel like i must raise the budget point of order. so -- so to sum up, the bill has mandatory spending that violates the limits that we've agreed to in the budget act and the bill also declares emergencies where they are not justified under the definition

of an emergency, something unique and special, it needs to be done at a special time. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. sessions: by raise a budget point of order against the emergency designation in are the vehicle for s. 2450, the veterans access to care through choice act pursuant to section 403-3-1 of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution, s. con. res. 1. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: i'm going to yield to senator mccain in a moment but before i do that, mr. president, pursuant to section 904 of the congressional budget act of 1974 the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions and section 4-g-3 of the statutory pay-as-you-go act of 2010, i move to waive all applicable sections of those

acts and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the pending bill and i ask for the yeas and nays. i would now like to yield to senator mccain. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the senator from arizona -- there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: how much time on both sides, again? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona has four minutes. the senator from vermont has 12 minutes. mr. mccain: does the senator from vermont want to go ahead? mr. sanders: if the senator from arizona needs more time at the end of his four, go right ahead. mr. mccain: mr. president, i want to thank a lot of people, including the staffs of the committees, senator sanders'

staff, daly melendez and senator burr's staff, natasha hickman, senator coburn, my own staff, jeremy heys and joe donahue and all the hard work that's gone into this legislation. i know it's well known to my colleagues that this is an unprecedented piece of legislation in that it for the first time is going to provide our veterans with a choice. there are many other provisions that i'd like to discuss also, but have been, and i'm sure my colleague from vermont will be addressing those. but, mr. president, there are according to a recent v.a. audit, over 57,000 veterans have been waiting for an appointment for over three months to see a physician at the v.a.

over 63,000 veterans over the past ten years have never been able to get an appointment at all. over -- there are allegations in the phoenix v.a. hospital that 40 veterans have died. today, today, dated june 11, the federal bureau of investigation has opened a criminal investigation into allegedly misleading scheduling practices at the department of veterans' affairs that may have concealed how long veterans had to way for appointments to see a doctor. our phoenix office has opened a criminal investigation, the f.b.i. director james carney said, in response to a lawmaker's questions at a hearing wednesday. if that isn't an emergency, i don't know what is. if it isn't an emergency that the very lives of the men and women who have served our country with honor and distinction are being either

jeopardized or allegations of absolutely being lost through almack -- malpractice and malfeasance, if that isn't an emergency, i have never seen one before this body. i urge my colleagues to vote this for what it is. this budget point of order. this is an emergency. if it's not an emergency that we have neglected the brave men and women who have served this country and kept us free, then i don't know what an emergency is. there's hard work been done on this legislation. hard work and a lot of compromises. and i'm happy to see that the majority of the veterans service organizations are now in support of it. is it a perfect piece of legislation? no. is exactly what i wanted? no. is it exactly what the senator from vermont wanted? absolutely not. but this is an emergency, i tell my colleagues if it's not an emergency of how we care for those who have served on the

field of battle, then nothing else is before this body. it breaks our hearts, it breaks americans' hearts when they hear and see these stories of these brave men and women and the neglect that they've suffered. the lack of a fulfillment of an obligation we made to them. so, mr. president, i hope we'll vote against this budget point of order. i hope we'll vote unanimously 100-0 to pass this legislation, send it to thousand dollars, go to conference and get it to the president's desk and start healing the wounds that we have -- that have been inflicted on these men and women. there's no way we can ever compensate for those that have gone without the treatment that they've earned. but at least we can expeditiously fix this problem to the best of our abit. is this the ultimate and final solution to these problems that have been uncovered? no. but it's a beginning.

it's not the end of the beginning, it's the -- it is a beginning. and there will be more proposals before us and there will be more efforts to fix this gaping wound in america's conscience. mr. president, i urge my colleagues to vote to waive the budget order. this is an emergency and i urge my colleagues to vote for the bill and again thank everyone for their involvement especially senator burr and senator coburn. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: let me just thank senator mccain for his very hard and bold work on this issue. he stood up and came forward when we needed somebody to do so and i think we've made real progress in a bipartisan way. as senator mccain just said, and i agree with him, if this is not an emergency, i'm not

quite clear what an emergency is. mr. president, during the last four years, some two million new veterans have come into the v.a. system, many of them have come in with very difficult medical problems, ptsd, p.t.i., we have an aging veteran population, taking care of older people is complex and expensive. and the simple truth is that in many parts of this country -- not all parts, i suspect but in a number of places in this country we simply do not have the number of doctors, nurses and other medical staff we need to accommodate the needs of our veterans. i have been told, unofficially, at least, that at the very minimal there is a need for 700 new physicians in the v.a., and i'm told that that is the floor, that the reality may be higher than that. i have been told that in phoenix

alone there is a need for hundreds of new providers in order to address the problems in that one large facility. further, this legislation says to veterans that if there are long wait times, if you cannot get into a facility in a reasonable time, you can go outside of the v.a. that's what this bill says. you know what? that is going to cost money. that will cost money. this legislation also says that if you live 40 miles or more from a v.a. facility, you have the option of going to a private provider. mr. president, that benefit is going to cost money. the bottom line is, is that if we are going to do what in my view we should do, and that is

to make sure that every facility in the v.a. has adequate staffing, doctors, nurses, other medical personnel, and to make sure there is available funding to pay for those veterans who will now get care outside of the v.a., right now the v.a. is spending about $4.8 billion a year in contract fees, no question in my mind that number is going to go up. but that's what we are voting on now. if you want to provide timely care to veterans, if you agree they should go outside of the v.a., it is going to cost money. if we are going to do those things and other things in this bill, this legislation needs to be passed as written, and we must waive the point of order brought up by senator sessions. lastly, mr. president, i would remind my colleagues that when congress voted to go to war in afghanistan and iraq, it did so

with emergency funding. those wars will, it is estimated, cost between $3 trillion and $6 trillion by the time we take care of the last veteran. if we can spend that kind of money to go to war on an emergency basis, surely we can spend .1% of that amount to take care of the men and women who fought those wars. so, mr. president, what we have done, as senator mccain has indicated, is developed a compromise. i'm sure he is not happy with everything in the bill, i am not happy with everything in the bill as well. i did want to also remind the members, the senators, about a few of the other provisions that are in this bill that are important. and i think do have bipartisan support. this bill allows for 26 major

medical facility leases which means improved and expanded care for veterans in 27 states and puerto rico. this bill provides for the expedited hiring of v.a. doctors and nurses, and $500 million targeted to hire those providers with unobligated funds. as i mentioned earlier, this bill allows for veterans to go outside of the v.a. when there are waiting lines and they live 40 miles from a facility. this bill also deals with an issue where there is widespread support, both in the house and the senate and that is the need to address in-state tuition for all veterans at public colleges and universities. it also provides that surviving spouses of those who die in the line of duty will be eligible for the post-9/11 g.i. bill. this bill also, importantly, establishes commissions to provide help to the v.a. in terms of improving scheduling

capabilities and god knows they certainly need that help, and also for capital planning. lastly, and we need to reiterate this point, this bill gives the secretary of the v.a. the authority to immediately fire incompetent employees and those who have falsified or manipulated data in terms of waiting periods. our legislation differs from the house that in order to prevent, in my view, the politicization of the v.a. or eliminate all due process, it provides for a very expedited appeals process. mr. president, the house of representatives passed legislation yesterday which covers a lot of the same ground that sanders-mccain bill covers, and i am absolutely confident that working with chairman miller and rankin rankg member michaud, we can send the president a bill that he can