room at booktv.org. booktv, television for serious readers. >> the u.s. senate starts its session shortly with morning hour speeches until 11:00 a.m. and confirmation votes votes on district judge nominations in florida and vermont along with a vote to advance a homeland security department nominations dealing with u.s. citizenship and immigration. the senate is expected to recess between 12:30 and 2:15 for party lunches. it is possible today or later in the week that the senate may turn to a bill reauthorizing a job training bill. live coverage of the senate is on c-span2. guest chaplain, gloria chaney-robinson who is a senior pastor, shiloh baptist church in scranton, pennsylvania. pastor. the guest chaplain: let us pray.

eternal lord god, we pause in these revered halls to give thanks and to offer petition. we acknowledge in this place, you have called all humankind to exhibit righteousness and justice. you desire harmony, accord, peace and wholeness. bless now, the representatives who gather in this place of policy and procedure. we ask oh god that you would impart the gift of now vision and future sights. we pray for your gifts of discernment, sensitivity and perceptiveness. for those assembled, present, give and grant the posture 6 of patience of cooperation. to those in debate, discussion, discourse and duty, allow calm clarity. allow truth to reign, justice to

reside, and mercy to resonate. keep ever before us the broken, the disappointed, those in despair, and the destitute. set ears to hear the cries of the poor, the needs of the sick, and the afflicted. please allow hearts assembled to do that which is best, for all. in advance, for what you will do, we say thank you. we pray in your holy name. amen. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

mr. reid: mr. president? the president pro tempore: the majority leader. mr. reid: i move to proceed to calendar number 384, the hey gan sportsman -- the hagan sportsman act. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 2363, a bill to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing and shooting and for other purposes. mr. reid: mr. president? the president pro tempore: the majority leader. mr. reid: following my remarks and those of the republican leader, the senate will be in a period of morning business until 11:00 this morning with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. at 11:00 a.m. the senate will proceed to executive session and we'll have five roll call votes which will be to confirm three judges from florida and one from vermont and also a very important nomination: rodriguez to be director of the united states citizenship and immigration services, department

of homeland security. mr. president, it's unfortunate that we have still scores and scores of good men and women on the executive calendar waiting to be confirmed, but the delay by the republicans is untoward. it's never happened before. and we're working through these as quickly as we can. with the judges, they can only take an hour of postcloture time. but on these nominations, they have eight hours. we can yield back four hours, which we do almost every time, but these stalling tactics have not added to our doing nothing here in the senate by hours. not days, not weeks, but months. and that's so unfortunate. we've never, i repeat, had a situation like this before. as everyone knows, we've changed the rules as it related to

judges. thank goodness, mr. president, we did that. justice can move forward in our country. the delay and obstruction that's taken place over the last number of years and republicans holding up judges, we through the chairman of the committee, have moved lots of judges. we have -- now we're going to have four circuit court judges we have to move toward and we will do that, even though each one of those takes 30 hours. and we're nearly caught up with district caught judges, which speaks well of the judiciary committee and senators who are forwarding names to the president for submission to the committee here. mr. president, tomorrow we're going to turn to the workforce investment act, a nice, important piece of legislation. and it is a picture of what we should be doing here on legislation generally.

the workforce investment act is a very complicated piece of legislation. we're not going to spend a lot of time on it, but that should not in any way take away from the importance of this legislation. it is a, really an important thing that we're doing. it's an example of how we should be able to get things done in the senate. now i commend senators murray, harkin, and alexander for working to get this bill to us. they have spent untoward hours and hours of time to get us here. i don't -- everyone knows what a peacemaker lamar alexander is. i appreciate his work. i was told just a few minutes ago that he came to the floor and said, why don't we go ahead on the appropriations bills, on amendments that appear to be controversial have 60 votes on those. i suggested the same thing yesterday, mr. president. we voted here approximately 50 times on -- i've been forced to

have now what we call the mcconnell rule, 60 votes on everything that is the least bit controversial. let's move through the appropriations bills. people on my side of the aisle want to do this, and i don't know why the republicans would prevent us from doing that. but that's where we are now. so, mr. president, i also just want to say i'm going to talk to the press in more detail at a subsequent time. but i want to congratulate rand paul, the junior senator from kentucky. about 15 years ago, mr. president, i offered an amendment here on the senate floor that said if someone has been convicted of a crime, a felony, and they have completed their sentence if they go to jail, if they've completed their probation time if they got probation, if they completed their parole time, this is all over with, they should be able to vote. and that's what rand paul said

in his offering legislation saying if it's a nonviolent crime, they should be able to vote when they've completed their time. i went a little further than that with mine, but i so appreciate his suggestion, and i'll have more to say about that later. and i hope i don't get him in trouble with his republican caucus for congratulating him on this. this is something that is long overdue. as a country, we should allow people who have served their time, who have served their pen nance or whoever you want to state it, they should at least be able to vote. as i said, i'll say for the third time, i have a lot more to say about that later today. would the chair announce the business of the day? the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, there will be a period of morning business until 11:00 a.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes

each, with time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the assistant majority leader. mr. durbin: mr. president, thank you. for a number of years -- years -- i have come to this floor to talk about an issue that i want to bring up again this morning. and the issue is for-profit colleges and universities. many people, when they hear me describe this, don't understand which schools i'm talking about. it's not the public universities that you would think of automatically -- the university of illinois, northwestern university and others, private universities like northwestern. it is the for-profit world of higher education. the leaders in that for-profit world -- mr. president, i see that the minority leader is on the floor here, senator

mcconnell. i'll proceed. the for-profit colleges and universities are led by the apollo group which owns the university of phoenix, the largest; devry university, based out of chicago, kaplan and corinthian and many others. they bring about 10% to 12% of all the high school graduates into their for-profit colleges. they receive from the federal government 20% of all the federal aid to education because their tuitions that they charge are very high. and these for-profit colleges have another distinction. their students account for 46% of all college student loan defaults. 10% of the students, 46% of the student loan defaults. what's going on here? what's going on here is that they are charging these students a high tuition for these

for-profit schools, and they are not preparing them to go to work, or at least not to work at jobs where they can pay off their student loans. so students will drop out before they finish or they'll finish with a diploma that's worthless. they can't find a job. they can't pay back their student loans. and now they're in the worst of all possible worlds, deep in debt with no education to speak of. for-profit colleges and universities. the reason i wanted to raise that point is there's been several significant developments. let me talk to you about some of these schools. education management corporation owns a group of schools called the art institutes. i've run into them in the chicago land area. argessy is another one of of these for-profit schools. i.t.t. tech, another one. i mentioned kaplan and apollo. career education corporation has schools like the american intercontinental university in

the harrington college of design. they sound very appealing. harrington, i met one of the students. hannah moore, she is a young woman from chicago. she went two years to community college. then she transferred into this harrington college of design in the suburbs of chicago to get a degree in design. and when it was all over, after she received her degree, she couldn't find a job. not in that field. it turned out that the diploma, degree, was basically worthless. but when she left harrington college of design she had a college debt of $125,000. $125,000, and she couldn't find a job, and she couldn't make the payments, and she started to move back in with her parents because that's all she could do. and now because she couldn't keep up with the payments, the debt has grown to $150,000, her college loan debt, and her father came out of retirement to try to help her pay it.

think about that. she did what she thought was a good thing in going to college. she went to one of these worthless, for-profit schools, and now her life is literally changed forever because of this mountain of debt. then there's a group called corinthian colleges that i want to focus on here. corinthian colleges based out of california. the local colleges name you may recognize is everest colleges. we have six of them in illinois. there are about ten in michigan, a dozen of them in california. they're across the united states, everest college. it turns out last year evidence surfaced that everest colleges were falsifying the information they were submitting to the federal government. in some cases they hired employers to hire everest graduates for a short period of time so they could report to the government their graduates found job. then after the report was made, it turns out that the people

were let go. they didn't have a job. everest was asked to send additional information to the federal government about this fraudulent practice, and for five months they failed to do it. and then last week the u.s. department of education said because everest wasn't provide us with the data they're supposed to under the law, we're going to suspend new student loan money to them for 21 days. everest colleges, corinthian, their parent corporation, announced that because of this, they were going to not have enough money and may not be able to continue their operations. the value of stock in this corporation, corinthian corporation, went down in the range of 28 cents last week. nobody would loan them money. well, right now some 75,000 students across america are enrolled in everest colleges with student loans, and there's a very good chance that everest colleges, corinthian as we know it, will not survive.

my obvious question is: what's going to happen to these students? they've got the debt to go to this worthless school that appears to be going out of business. we're working with the u.s. department of education right now. i'm concerned about where these students are going to end up. i've contacted the community colleges in my state and said reach out to the everest college students, see if you can rescue these kids. but put it in perspective. this is only one of many for-profit colleges and universities. most students don't know this whole brand of higher education is out there. they think it's just like every other college. it is not. and we're not doing a good enough job at the federal level to regulate these for-profit colleges and universities that are exploiting these students. let me tell you one story that was reported recently that i think is horrible involving corinthian colleges. an article written by david ha

halpehalperin. a 37-year-old man with what happens to be a developmental disability. he was reading at an elementary school level, 37 years old, was allowed to enroll in everest colleges criminal justice program. according to the librarian who worked with him and subsequently resigned because of the treatment of this man, the man was rarely able to comprehend sentences, was unable to sound out words, and does not have the ability to read documents he was asked to sign. she was worried about his ability to even understand the debt that he was signing on for, the student loan debt at one of these everest colleges. it apparently didn't matter to everest. they were ready to sign him up, as long as as this man was eligible to take out loans, he waeverest was going to get paid. is that outrageous to think that

they would lure someone with a disability into signing up? the list goes on and on. ashford university, another one of these for-profit colleges and universities. the obvious question we have to ask is this: when will our department of education and when will this congress address this travesty? what is existing across the united states with these for-profit colleges and universities is an outrage. and it's exploiting students and families. sadly, a couple weeks ago we trude to pass a bill on -- we tried to pass a bill on the floor here so that students could renegotiate their student loans, bring down the interest rates. every democrat voted for it. we needed five republicans to join us so that students in states like new jersey and illinois could renegotiate their student loans down, makes them more affordable, we got three republicans, senator collins, senator corker, and senator

murkowski. we needed two more to start the debate about renegotiating college loans p. i think we've got to wake up here. ththis debt that the families ae facing is an outrage. part of it is started by these for-profit schools. but another part of it just reflects a debt that is out of control, and we ought to be more sensitive to it. we're going to call this again. elizabeth warren brought the bill to the floor. this time we're going to hope that some of our republican friends go home to their states and actually speak to families who are paying college student loans. if they will, i think they'll understand they should join us in this effort. give these college student loans and their families a fighting chance to pay off the loans, reform the higher education system to stop the outrageous conduct by these for-profit colleges and universities. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: last summer i said it felt like the white

house had hung a "gone campaigning" sign oud the oval office. president obama didn't seem seriously interested in passing middle-class conclusions. it was all campaigning all the time. on the rarest occasions when he did come to congress, it was for internal campaign rallies with his party. well, it's actually only gotten worse. since last summer, he's barely picked up the phone and his bill-signing bill is literally starting to rust. here's the reason: this summer the democrat-controlled senate seems to have put out a "gone campaigning" sign of its own. that's why the democratic senate has become a ver i veritable ge yard of good ideas. most people assume the purpose of the senate to pass legislation to help the american people. but these days the democrats

that run the senate seem to think their role is actually to just bury good legislation. they're more interested in pleasing their far-left political patrons, patrons who appear to oppose everything that could actually help the american middle class. case in point: the republican-led house of representatives has already passed hundreds of pieces of legislation this congress, legislation introduced by members of both parties, including dozens of jobs bills that remain stuck here in the senate. that means president obama hasn't had to sign or veto them and the senate majority leader has been all too happy to protect him, choosing between helping the far-left fringe and the vast american middle. in other words, senate democrats are on a mission this summer to obstruct solutions for the middle class at every turn and to prevent almost any serious legislating from occurring at t

all. over in the house, the minority party has been offered more than 160 votes on their amendments since last july. here in the senate, the democratic leadership has blocked all but nine republican roll call votes. and i.t it's not just republican amendments getting squashed either. the democrats are so afraid of legislating these days that they're blocking virtually every amendment on both sides. it's gotten to the point where one house democrat, a congresswoman from texas, has now had twice as many roll call votes on amendments since last july -- 15 -- as the entire senate democratic conference combined. one member of the house in the minority party has had more votes than all of the democratic senators combined over the last year. between the 55 senate democrats, they've had seven amendments in

a year. in other words, the majority leader is treating his own kfns even worse than -- conference than even worse than he's treating us. even committee work can no longer escape the democratic majority's political obsession. the majority shut down the committee process on important legislation that could have been and would have been bipartisan, bills about patents and appropriations. this is the kind of stuff that makes americans so very mad at washington. i mean, how do you justify stifling the voices of so many senators and the tens of millions of americans they were sent here to represent? it's indefensible. and i.t. gotten worse and worse -- and it's gotten worse and worse under current democratic leaders. of course, every now and then we're able to force our democratic friends to allow a few -- a few -- bipartisan ideas to go through like the job

training and workforce development bill we expect to pass tomorrow. but, boy, that's the rare exception around here, a very rare option. -- a very rare exception. instead we actually bein accedeo game playing on very important issues. the democrats block every attempt to provide relief to blue-collar families that have been affected by the attack on coal jobs. they won't allow a serious vote on shovel-ready projects like the keystone pipeline pipe either. senate democrats have blocked just about every effort to move forward on these issues and in so dork the democratic leadership actually embarrasses the handful of democratic senators who still call for action on energy and keystone. even veteran members who chair committees. it just shows what little influence those members actually

have under the normal -- under the current democratic leadership. and it all lays a very simple truth about today tion democratic senate: if the far left hates it, it ain't happening. that's true with health care, too. the middle class is being plummeted by obamacare. a recent study showed that an average 27-year-old kentuckian from taylor county, saw his premiums skyrocket by almost 60% this year. constituents like him are looking to washington for leadership and for solutions, but senate democrats won't even allow sensible bipartisan solutions to come to a vote. instead, we just get more politics. like the legislation we hear may be coming up later this week, a tactic designed by the democratic campaign committee to make americans forget -- forget -- that democrats voted to raid

medicare -- voted to raid medicare by $700 billion to fund new obamacare spending. every democrat in the senate on christmas eve 2009, without exception, voted to take $700 billion out of medicare to help fund obamacare. senate democrats are actually trying to distract from their votes to raid medicare by making it even harder to save and strengthen medicare. but americans won't forget that the sponsors of the proposal were the very same people who voted to raid medicare in the first place through obamacare. and they won't forget what happened last week either. when republicans advance add sears of bills aimed to boost upward mobility. we thought democrats might want to work with us in a bipartisan

manner to move these bills forward, but apparently the far left won't let them. democratic leadership won't even consider legislation i introduced that would help moms and dads work from home while caring for young children. my bill aims to bring tax policy in line with what life is reallyic for working parents and it would help young parents save on child care costs, too. like i said, senate democrats have just gone campaigning. for the democratic leadership, helping the middle class seems to be far from priority one. but the middle class needs help right now, and the only way to offer working moms and struggling college graduates real solutions is to break through the senate democratic logjam. there are two ways to accomplish that: either our friends on the other side can get serious about working for the people at that elected them or the people that elected them can make the decision for them.

mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, yesterday the white house held its summit on working families. on the summit's web site the white house notes -- and i quote -- "too many working americans, both men and women, are living paycheck to paycheck struggling to make ends meet and respond to the competing demands of work and family." end quote. mr. president, that, unfortunately, is the truth. but what the white house doesn't acknowledge is how much its policies have done to create that situation. working families have not fared well under the obama administration. household income has fallen by

$3,500 on the president's watch. meanwhile prices for nearly everything have risen. food prices have gone up. tuition costs are soaring. airline fares are rising. the cost of recreational activities like going to the movies has risen. and energy prices are placing a huge burden on american families. gas prices have nearly doubled since the president took office. low-income families in my state of south dakota pay an average of 24% of their income on energy costs alone. and things are set to get much worse. this month the president's e.p.a. announced plans to complement a massive energy tax on americans. thanks to this tax energy prices could terrorize to crippling -- could rise to be crippling levels for many families in the next few years, that is not what

families need especially when paying huge prices for health care. obamacare was supposed to make things better for american families. the president assured his health care law would reduce premiums by $2,500. but not have premiums not fallen, they have risen, gone up by $2,500. millions of americans were forced off the health plans that they were promised they could keep into exchange plans that frequently cost more money and offer less. too many american families now have exchange plans with massive deductibles, some as high as $12,000 or more. mr. president, what middle-class family can afford to pay $12,000 a year for medical care? $12,000 on top of their premiums. that's like having an additional mortgage payment every single month. it's no wonder that 54% of

americans don't think the president is able to lead the country and get the job done according to a reece -- recent "wall street journal" nbc news poll. so what can you do if you're a working family living paycheck to paycheck and struggling with the high cost of everything from health care to gasoline? mr. president, over the past few years the answer has been not much. because opportunities are few and far between in the obama economy. instead of promoting policies to create jobs, too often the president has proposed policies that kill jobs. the nonpartisan congressional budget office has reported that obamacare will cost two and a half million full time workers to leave the workforce. 2.6 million americans earning less than $30,000 are in danger of having their hours and wages cut thanks to obamacare's 30-plus hour workweek rule. 63% of those workers are women. the president and his party have

also pushed hard for a minimum-wage hike the congressional budget office said would destroy up to a million jobs. low-income americans would be hit the hardest by that. then there's the president's national energy tax. in addition to raising energy bills for all americans, the president's energy tax resulted in the loss of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs. the rule would gut the coal industry, putting tens of thousands of workers out of work there. it's difficult to reconcile the president's ostensible commitment to families with a policy that would put thousands and thousands of parents out of jobs. the keystone x.l. pipeline would allow the president to put thousands of americans to work. with a stroke of his pen, the president could sign off on this project and the 42,000-plus jobs that it would support. instead he's ignored american workers and union leaders and

chosen to pander to the wishes of his extremist environmental base. mr. president, the american people need jobs. steady, good-paying, long-term jobs with opportunities for advancement. democrats and the president are not giving that to them. instead of spending time on real job-creation measures, the majority leader has chosen to waste the senate's time on gimmicky politically motivated legislation. if democrats were serious about providing real relief to american families, they would be working with republicans on the many bills we propose to spur job creation and to support american workers. bills like senator collins 40 hours is full time act which would repeal the obamacare 30-hour workweek rule which is resulting in lower wages and fewer hours for american workers.

or senator fischer's workplace advancement measure which would equip women with the tools they need to fight discrimination in the workplace. and senator rubio's raise act which will amend the national labor relations act to allow employers to give merit-based pay increases to individual employees even if those increases are not part of a collective bargaining agreement. and senator mcconnell's working parents home office act which would fix a flaw in the tax code that prevents men and women from claiming a home office deduction if their home office has a baby crib, so they can care for their child while they're working. mr. president, president obama has talked about the important of flex time for parents so they can adjust their work hours for parent-teacher conferences or soccer games. well, senator lee has a bill that would help workers handle the constant challenge of work-life balance by allowing private-sector employers to allow all individuals who work overtime a choice between a

monetary compensation and between comptime. unfortunately, like so many other republican bills, the lee working families flexibility act is buried in the majority leader's senate graveyard. traditionally thought of as place where bills go to be debated, the united states has instead become the place where bills go to die. but it's not just bills that go to die here. it's the solutions to improve the lives of millions of americans. in addition to the many senate republican jobs bills that the majority leader has prevented from seeing the light of day, there are dozens, literally dozens of house-passed jobs bills, several of them bipartisan that the majority leader refuses to bring up. mr. president, the senate historically has been a place where the voices of all senators, republican and democrat, majority and minority, have been hurt. but lately the senate seems to have become nothing so much as an arm of the democrats'

campaign committee. democrats have brought up bills designed to win votes, not to solve problems. the democrat leadership has worked hard to prevent its vulnerable members from having to take challenging votes. they don't want democrats in tough campaigns to have to choose between the american people and democrat party's far left political base. one of congress's most basic duties is to consider appropriations. yet, over the past two weeks the majority leader has pulled not one, but two appropriations bills from committee consideration because he didn't want his members to have to take votes on obamacare or on the president's national energy tax. mr. president, that's wrong. we're here to take tough votes if you don't want to have to take hard votes don't run for the united states senate. there's a lot of stuff that amendments get offered on the other side that i don't like to vote on either, but that's what we're here for.

we're here for debate. we're here to take votes. we're here to offer amendments to, put legislation on the floor. all of us have different ideas. i may not agree with some of the things that are offered up by my colleagues on the other side, but the fact of the matter is they have a right on behalf of the constituents that they represent to bring the issue to the floor that are important to their constituents and for us to debate them and for us to vote on them. in fact, the majority leader has exerted such tight control over the senate that over the past year he's not only blocked almost all republican amendments, he's blocked almost all of his party's amendments as well. since july of 2013, almost a year ago, the majority leader has allowed votes on just nine republican amendments and just seven democrat amendments out of 1,500 amendments that have been filed here on the floor of the senate. think about that, mr. president. the world's greatest

deliberative body open to amendment, open to debate, 1,500 amendments get filed. republicans get nine votes. i mean, i understand the whole idea that if political motivation of the leader is trying to prevent his members from having to take tough votes. but how do you as a majority member, how do democrats go back to their constituents at home and say it is advantageous for us to be in the majority here in washington when you've only had votes on seven amendments. think about that. how do you with a straight face go back to your constituents and say being in the majority matters in the united states senate when democrats here are only getting, in the last year, seven amendments voted on. it's outrageous. one a month. about one amendment a month is what we're voting on here roughly. mr. president, senators were elected to speak for the people of their state and to make sure

that their concerns are represented in the senate. when senators can't add their voices to the process, the american people's concerns are not getting heard. the american people have had a tough time getting their voices heard over the past few years. over and over they have made it clear that they need good jobs and more economic opportunity. instead they've gotten five and a half years of higher costs and low job creation. and the jobs that are being created are not the kinds of jobs that were lost. ed good-paying jobs that provide opportunities for advancement. republicans have proposed numerous bills to expand opportunities for american families and workers. it is time for the senate to vote on these bills. the american people have spent enough time being ignored, mr. president. it is high time for the united

states senate to change the way that it's conducting its business. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr.

in the u.s. defense establishment has been extraordinary. the vast majority of land mine use and production has stopped. new casualties have dropped significantly, and many countries have cleared the mined areas in their territories. mr. leahy: of the 35 countries that have not yet joined the treaty, including the united states, almost all abide by its provisions. now, we can be proud that the united states has been the largest contributor to programs to clear mines and to help mine victims. those programs have saved countless lives. in fact, the war victims' fund, the leahy war victims' fund was first used in mozambique. but i remember during the negotiations on the treaty how officials in the u.s. administration at the time

urged, even times warned their counterparts in other countries against joining the treaty, including our nato allies, all of whom have joined it. some in our government said it was a meaningless gesture that would accomplish nothing. and i think they resented other governments, especially canada, and nongovernmental organizations around the world could achieve something outside the nature united nations negots process that ultimately failed to address the problem. instead, the treaty has already accomplished more than most people have expected, thanks to the preerd advocacy of the international campaign to ban land mines and three-quarters of the world's governments, many of whose people have suffered from the scourge of land mines. that's the good news.

the bad news is that the problem is still not solved. there's still thousands of injuries and deaths from the incident of mine use each year. and, mr. president, they're not combatants in most cases, they're innocent civilians. because even when you have a peace agreement between armies fighting each other, they leave, the land mines stay. 20 years ago the speech at the united nations that inspired people around the world, president clinton 7 called for a ban on antipersonnel land mines, and i'm proud of president clinton for doing that. but his presidency, his white house, his administration was outmaneuvered by the pentagon and they failed to join the treaty. then during the eight years of the last bush administration, nothing happened. in fact, during those years, the white house reneged on some of

the pledges of the clinton administration. when president obama was elected, i thought we'd finally see the u.s. get on the right side of this issue. after all, we fought two long wars without using antipersonnel mines. all our nato allies, most of our coalition partners have banned them. but we haven't joined the treaty. now, we rightly condemn and i do condemn the taliban for using victim-active aid i.e.d.'s, which are also banned by the -- activated i.e.d.'s, which are also banned by the treaty. but we also retain our rights to use antipersonnel mines. 18 years, president clinton charged the pentagon to develop alternatives to antipersonnel mines. instead, the pentagon has fought every attempt to get rid of these indiscriminate weapons,

even if they don't use them. they say we have to have them in our arsenal. as i said many times, no one argues that antipersonnel mines have no military utility. every weapon has a military utility. poison gas can have a military utility, but we outlawed it a century ago. are we really incapable of renouncing, as our closest allies have tiny explosives that are the antithesis of precision-guided weapons, weapons we have rightly not used during two long wars, weapons that kill children and innocent civilians and are weapons that should bring condemnation to number that would use them. we talk about the importance of avoiding civilian casualties. we all believe in that. we've seen how civilian casualties can turn a local

population against us. we don't export antipersonnel land mines. we don't use them. we say way can't get rid of them. mr. president, we can drive a robot on mars by remote control but we say we can't solve this problem? it begs credulity. mr. president, this is not an abstract issue. this girl is who i'm talking about. i've met countless people like her. she was lucky. she survived. even though without hands and legs. many others like her bleed to death. i've been to clinics in poor countries where instead of soccer balls, they make artificial limbs like these.

and why? because they need them. i go there with the leahy war victims' fund. i'm proud that we can give them money but i wish there was absolutely no need for that fund. i visited, as i stated before, a young girl in a hospital after the bosnia war. parents sent her away so she could be safe. the war ends. the armies withdraw. peace is signed. she can come back. she runs down the road calling out to her parents and steps on a mine and loses both her legs. some safety. the war's over. combatants are not in danger. we recently sent people to that area of the world after

flooding. why? because the thousands of land mines still on the ground are washed and moved around and schoolchildren now face the danger again. because even though they had mapped where the land mines were, that's where they were before the floods. now, as in the past, the white house hides behind the neglect of this area by pointing to north korea. well, who's not concerned about north korea? but are we so dependent on antipersonnel land mines we can't develop war plans for defending south korea without them? i reject that just as former commanders of our forces in korea rejected it long ago. last week, after a cursory

two-minute debate, they inaccurately described the land mines in the d.m.z. as u.s. mines, which they're not, and that inaccurately asserted, based on an erroneous press report, that the white house is about to join the mine ban treaty, which it's not. the house defense appropriations subcommittee, egged on by the pentagon, adopted by voice vote a prohibition of the use of funds to implement the treaty. they followed the same idea where we still have poison gas in our arsenal. we're the only country -- the only civilized country to have that. the amendment's sponsor even claimed the one thing, the only thing, stopping a north korean invasion is u.s. antipersonnel mines. balderdash. did the pentagon tell him that?

of course not. i wonder how many, if any, members of that subcommittee have even read the treaty. one would think 61 years after the korean war, the pentagon would not still be arguing the defense of south korea depends on tiny, indiscriminate explosives that would also pose a threat to u.s. forces if we counterattacked. it really makes you wonder this country has to arm -- a country that spends more money on its military than any country in the world, we have to rely on these little land mines to protect us? oh, come on. president obama still has a little bit of time to put the united states on a path to join the treaty but time is running out. it will require some revision of our korea war plans, revision our past commanders have said we

should do. but that can be done over time in a manner that protects the security of south korea and our troops. it needs to be done because without the participation and support of the united states, the most powerful nation on earth, no international treaty can achieve its potential. so i commend the participants of the mobuto review conference. i regret the united states is there only as an observer, as it's been since the honorable process began 18 years ago. we can sit on the sidelines as though we have no involvement in this. what a missed opportunity. what a stain on the country that should be the moral leader. now, the next review crche confe is in 2019, 25th anniversary of president obama's speech.

what an anniversary it would be if that next review conference were held in washington, with the united states attending as a party to the treaty. at the rate we're going, 2019 is as far away as the 18 years we've wasted have been. mr. president, i'll speak on this subject more at other times, but i ask unanimous consent that a june 22 article in "the boston globe," a join 23 article in "the new york times" on the subject be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, what is the parliamentary situation? the presiding officer: we are in morning business until 11:00 a.m. mr. leahy: mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. nelson: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, happily i want to inform the senate that the three judges from florida that we are about to vote on have the support of senator rubio and me and it is as a result of a bipartisan process. it's actually a nonpartisan process how we select our judges

in florida. senator rubio and i appoint a judicial nominating commission in the three judicial districts in florida. they then, when there is a vacancy of a judge or a u.s. attorney or u.s. marshal receive the applications, do the interviews and make for one vacancy three recommendations. senator rubio and i then take those three recommendations and the two of us together interview the applicants and the arrangement we have with the white house -- and, of course, we know that the president could select whomever he wants -- but the white house has graciously

agreed and this has been a long-standing practice with the federal judges selections from florida. the white house has agreed that they will pick from among the three that we send, and senator rubio and i send comments to the white house about the three, even though what we primarily do is tell the white house if we have an objection to any one of the three that come through the judicial nominating commission process. and, therefore, what we do is we take politics out of the selection of judges. and i would highly recommend to the senate paul byron and carlos

eduardo mendoza, both of the middle district, and beth bloom of the southern district. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will be -- proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations, which the clerk will report. the clerk: nominations: paul g. byron of florida to be united states district judge for the middle district. carlos eduardo mendoza of florida to be united states district judge for the middle district. beth bloom of florida to be united states district judge for the southern district. geoffrey w. crawford of vermont to be united states district judge. the presiding officer: we are now in two minutes debate prior

to the byron nomination. the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, i yield back all time. i ask unanimous consent to yield back all time. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: mr. president, i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any senator wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the ayes are 94, the

nays are zero. and the nomination is confirmed. there are now two equally divided prior to a vote on the mendoza nomination. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, just to remind the senate, this judge and the next one, as the previous one, is done by the judicial nominating commission process that senator rubio and i use in order to take any kind of politics out of the selection of judges. it's worked very well for years, and this judge and the next one are part of that process. thank you very much. i yield the floor. mr. president, i ask consent to

yield back all time. the presiding officer: without objection all time is yielded back. the question is on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

the presiding officer: any senators wishing to vote? if not, -- the ayes are 94, the nays are zero. the nomination is confirmed. there are now two minutes

equally divided prior to a vote on the bloom nomination. without objection all time is yielded back. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote: